Kazakhstan Crypto Crackdown Continues as Trader Is Jailed for 5 Years
Kazakhstan’s crypto crackdown is continuing apace, with a court in the nation sending an illegal trader to jail for five years.
Per a post from the nation’s Supreme Court and a report from Inform Buro, the unnamed convict has also been banned from “issuing and trading” cryptoassets and “digital mining” for 10 years.
The court also confiscated some $4.19 million worth of fiat and crypto from the man, which it said would be handed over to the Treasury.
The man, the court heard, “engaged in the illegal trading of cryptoassets,” namely Bitcoin (BTC), Litecoin (LTC), and Ethereum (ETH), on “foreign platforms.”
He traded coins on various crypto exchanges and made use of the Nixmoney, Qiwi, Perfect Money, and Payeer platforms, the court heard.
The man also illegally mined crypto, the court announced. However, it did not mention which coins the man used, or explain if he had used an illegal connection to the grid.
Prosecutors said the man was active on the platforms “between 2020 and 2022. He then “laundered part of his illegal income by purchasing real estate, which he then sold and rented out,” the prosecution explained.
Public prosecutors had demanded a six-plus-year jail sentence, telling the judge the miner should serve two and a half years in prison for conducting “illegal business activity.”
Prosecution officials also wanted to jail the man for a further four years for “money laundering” offenses.
The man, a resident of the Kostanay region in the north of the country, denied all charges during the trial.
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Kazakhstan has previously taken a liberal and progressive stance on crypto and
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