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Law enforcers detained two men who were charged with illegal activities. During the search, investigators seized money, cryptocurrency and digital media.
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Since 2019, two men, a 37-year-old foreigner and his 35-year-old acquaintance, had been working without registration as residents of the High Tech Park (HTP). The investigation alleges that the accused ran a cryptocurrency exchange business in the UAE, Armenia, Georgia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Tajikistan.
Both detainees were charged with large-scale tax evasion. The total illegal income of the suspects is estimated at 9 million Belarusian rubles (about 220 million rubles).
One of the detainees stated that the activities of the exchange office in Minsk generated a monthly net income of about $7,000.
A 41-year-old Minsk resident, who was a counterparty of the liquidated cryptocurrency exchanger, was also detained. The investigation asserts that the man himself engaged in similar illegal activities through an automated chatbot in Telegram. The income of the third detainee is estimated at 7.5 million Belarusian rubles (210 million rubles).
Belarusian authorities have recently fined two residents of Minsk for the shadow turnover of cryptocurrencies. Mining, buying and selling of tokens by individuals is not prohibited in Belarus. However, the business of exchange and trade is prohibited. Such activities, in certain cases, can be considered complicity in criminal offenses, such as drug trafficking or money laundering. Then a resident of Belarus could face imprisonment for organizing a cryptocurrency exchanger.
At the beginning of the year, one organizer of the cryptocurrency exchanger in Belarus was fined $1 million;