Law enforcement authorities believe the network fabricated fake loan agreements to conceal digital asset trading revenues that were funneled straight into financial accounts.
Israeli law enforcement detained five individuals on Tuesday in connection with a money laundering inquiry involving roughly 16 million shekels ($5 million) worth of cryptocurrency exchanges coordinated via a WhatsApp group.
Detectives from the National Unit for Combating Economic Crime under Lahav 433 suspect the ring offered unauthorized digital currency services and omitted required transaction reports to the tax authorities of Israel, as reported by The Jerusalem Post.
During raids on the suspects’ residences, officers confiscated digital wallets, personal computers, and tens of thousands of shekels in physical currency. Officials interrogated the five suspects on allegations involving money laundering, fraud, and operating a financial asset business without authorization.
The Israel Tax Authority disclosed two additional arrests on October 6 regarding separate inquiries into alleged omissions of cryptocurrency reporting. One case encompassed transactions valued at tens of millions of dollars. In the second instance, an individual residing in Ashdod was accused of concealing profits generated from roughly $13 million in digital currency trades conducted between 2019 and 2021.
An evaluation conducted in November 2024 by the State Comptroller of Israel revealed that an average of approximately 500 people declared digital asset transactions annually spanning from 2018 through 2022, despite an estimated pool of at least 200,000 potential taxpayers.
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Originally published at https://cointelegraph.com/news/israel-police-arrest-five-5m-whatsapp-crypto-scheme?utm_source=rss_feed&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss_partner_inbound.
