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Crypto Exchange Bitzlato Restores Access To User Funds – Exchange Bitcoin News
Russian-affiliated cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato has begun processing withdrawals of digital assets belonging to its customers. The trading platform was shut down in an operation by law enforcement agencies in the US and Europe alleging that it had been used to launder dirty money.
Bitzlato allows withdrawals after being offline for several weeks
Users who have deposited money into Bitzlato can now start withdrawing their coins, the recently seized crypto exchange said in a Telegram message. The announcement comes after a period of over a month where the trading platform was unavailable.
The Hong Kong-registered exchange, better known to Russian-speaking traders, was taken down in a coordinated police operation in January when French authorities seized control of the site and their American counterparts arrested its co-founder Anatoly Legkodymov.
The US Department of Justice believes Bitzlato has processed over $700 million in funds from criminal entities such as the darknet market Hydra and the Russian crypto-pyramid scheme Finiko. According to Europol, it exchanged over $1 billion of illegal money.
“We were gone for 42 long days, but we are back. A lot of work has been done to ensure that your data is safe and that the coins are in your wallet, Bitzlato said in the post. It also insisted it had been used as “a bargaining chip in backstage games”.
In late January, four more members of the team, including three leaders, were arrested in European countries. The other Bitzlato co-founder, Anton Shkurenko, was briefly arrested, questioned and released by Russian police in February.
Before that, Shkurenko announced in an interview on Youtube that Bitzlato intends to move to Russia and restore operations and withdrawals from there. He also said that French investigators had seized Bitzlato’s hot wallet with over a third of his assets and noted that the withdrawals were going to be partial at first.
Do you think Russian authorities will allow Bitzlato to operate from the country? Share your thoughts on the topic in the comments section below.
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