The Canadian businessman sentenced to the US prison

A Montreal entrepreneur will spend three and a half additional years in an American prison for hiding dozens of millions of dollars in Bitcoin in an unstalled account after a previous criminal sentence related to cryptocurrencies.

The businessman, Firoz Patel, was sentenced on Thursday in a federal court in Washington, DC, for a position to obstruct an official procedure, which ended the last chapter of a tortuous criminal case.

In 2012, Patel launched the firm that would be known as Payza, which prosecutors said there were few scarce protocols for due dignge multilevel marketing worldwide.

“Payza, through its robust network of ghost companies and criminal associates, became the preferred method for criminals to be ill illegal and transfer funds to other criminal associates,” according to prosecutors.

Patel was initially sentenced in 2020 for a conspiracy charge related to money laundering through Payza. Patel declared that his only assets amounted to $ 30,000 in a retirement savings account. Authorities say they remained in the dark about the 450 Bitcoin Patel stash, which is now worth more than $ 40 million.

In the months prior to the presentation of the prison in 2021, Patel accumulated Cover Bitcoin in a Binance virtual wallet, but the company moved to close the account after he built red flags. Patel then transferred the funds to an account dominated by the United Kingdom at Blockchain.com, according Judicial records. The prosecutors said he opened the account in his father’s name.

After being blocked to access those funds, in June 2021, Patel filed a legal claim against blockchain.com at the United Kingdom court using their real name, “abandoning the claim that the funds belonged to any other person,” According to prosecutors.

That October, as part of the International Document Research Consortium of Pandora de Investiga, the Canadian broadcasting corporation and the Toronto star revealed that Patel, who was in prison, had established a company abroad while under criminal investigation years before.

Three months later, Federal researchers from the United States worked with the British authorities to confiscate the Patel bitcoin.

Responding to the questions of journalists in the star of Toronto in 2021, Patel suggested that the positions of the United States to which he declared himself guilty would not be considered a crime in Canada.

“There must be intention to wash funds, and there was no intention to execute a company (money transfer) without the required licenses, therefore, the basis of the accusation of money laundering is false,” said at that time In a statement sent by email.

He also told reporters that his company that was revealed in Pandora’s documents was destined for legitimate purposes and never did any business.

Last Friday, Patel presented a motion to appeal his last sentence. A lawyer who represents Patel rejected a request for comments.