Meet Trung Nguyen, the James Bond of Bitcoin laundering—only with less charm and more jail time. 🚓💸
A US man, who thought running a “no questions asked” cash-to-Bitcoin exchange was a brilliant idea, is now packing his bags for a six-year stint behind bars. And to add insult to incarceration, he has to surrender millions of dollars—because what’s a small fortune for some guys to forget about? 💰🔒
In the grand tradition of bad Ponzi schemes and even worse disguises, Boston federal court Judge Richard Stearns sentenced Nguyen from Danvers, Massachusetts, to six years, plus a three-year supervised timeout, and ordered him to forfeit $1.5 million. Yep, that’s your tax-funded entertainment. 🏛️📉
Prosecutors revealed that Nguyen ran an “unlicensed money-transmitting business” called National Vending—because who doesn’t want to be a vending machine salesman, right? From September 2017 to October 2020, he cleverly learned how to turn cash into Bitcoin using “various techniques” he picked up from what must have been a very shady online course. Spoiler alert: the course probably included how to hide your tracks and avoid taxes—though he might have missed the part about actually following the law. 📚🔍
Nguyen’s cover story? Pretending to be a vending machine company that accepted cash deposits, with a fake list of suppliers, all while avoiding saying “Bitcoin” as if it’s Voldemort. “He’s just a vending machine guy,” I imagine him saying, headphones in, staring blankly at his screen. 🖥️🤖
Apparently, Nguyen’s clientele included victims of scams—people who thought they were converting cash into digital gold when, in reality, they were just handing their money over to overseas con artists. He also dealt with a drug dealer who, in a master stroke of financial genius, sent $250,000 in cash across ten transactions in 2018. Because what could possibly go wrong? 💊💸
The Justice Department stated Nguyen converted over a million dollars into Bitcoin but somehow managed to overlook the fancy little rule about registering with FinCEN—because apparently, rules are made to be bent or ignored. And forget about filing those suspicious activity reports—Nguyen was too busy being a crypto ninja, breaking up deposits into smaller chunks and hiding behind encrypted apps. 🕵️♂️🔐
Undercover sting operation: how the magic was exposed
Turns out, Nguyen loved meeting clients face-to-face, accepting piles of cash—because nothing says discretion like handing over a briefcase in a parking lot. The FBI caught on during one of these charming exchanges, where he agreed to send Bitcoin in exchange for cash, taking a generous 5% commission—because apparently, that’s his idea of a “business model.” 💼💵
He was sneaky with tech, using encrypted messages and breaking deposits into tiny pieces across various banks to stay under the radar—because why make things easy for law enforcement? Naturally, that plan failed, and Nguyen now finds himself charged with operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and laundering some serious cash. 💸🚓
Though he pleaded not guilty, a jury had different plans. In November, they nailed him on the main charge and one of the money laundering counts—though surprisingly, he was freed from another, as if the courtroom staff just got tired of counting. 🤷♂️
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2025-05-23 06:11