Bitzlato kept a low profile, but did not go entirely unnoticed before DOJ action

Noncustodial peer-to-peer crypto speech Bitzlato was small known to immoderate earlier the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement enactment against it connected Jan. 18. It was cofounded successful 2016 by precocious arrested Russian national, Anatoly Legkodymov.

According to a Russian source, Anatoly Legkodymov is the proprietor of 73.4% of Bitzlato, which has an bureau connected a precocious level successful the Federation Tower skyscraper successful Moscow, wherever it accepted trades of $100,000 oregon more. Legkodymov and his main spouse successful Bitzlato are besides reportedly progressive successful Russian crypto mining instrumentality organisation institution A-HVT.

Legkodymov had a agelong and checkered past successful the crypto manufacture going backmost much than a decade. His earliest station connected the BitcoinTalk forum dates backmost to 2011, wherever helium described the events that led to a nonaccomplishment of much than 50 BTC:

Legkodymov described the process of opening the Bitzlato speech successful an online forum successful 2017:

"My squad and I person analyzed galore nonaccomplishment scenarios, including a simulation of a hacker onslaught by the speech owners and operators, and we recovered a solution that allows america to run a bitcoin speech successful a highly unafraid manner." 

While Bitzlato attracted small attraction until the DOJ enactment connected Jan. 18, Chainalysis stated successful Feb. 2022 repor that the exchang:

“Has received $206 cardinal from darknet markets, $224.5 cardinal from scams, and $9 cardinal from ransomware attackers.”

Illicit and risky transactions made up 48% of the company’s concern astatine that time, according to the report.

Related: US sanctions Russia's largest darknet marketplace and crypto speech Garantex

The DoJ had announced it would beryllium holding a league to sermon the charges aboriginal successful the day, but did not bespeak which companies would beryllium involved. This led many, who were speculating astir the engagement of overmuch larger names, to respond with a definite magnitude of irony:

Someone archer the DoJ that 7 figures transgression successful crypto is called a regular Wednesday. https://t.co/zpV6LcLrpW

— Dylan LeClair (@DylanLeClair_) January 18, 2023

You kinda recognize however wholly irrelevant Bizlato is erstwhile you recognize that not a azygous ENS degen figured it was worthy registering until 12 minutes agone pic.twitter.com/QpXqMy0HIs

— anon.eth (@player1_eth) January 18, 2023

One lawyer commenting online called the enactment against Bitzlato “the blueprint for aboriginal actions, perchance adjacent the 1 highly anticipated today.”

Others saw darker forces astatine enactment successful taking down this darknet actor:

— Sn/Fr-axgener 200x (@napgener) January 18, 2023

Bitzlato itself was intelligibly unsuspecting of the enactment astir to overtake it. It tweeted the morning’s speech rates to its 1,488 followers connected Jan. 18.

Lol you are successful jail

— UnsafeMedicine (@unsafemedicine) January 18, 2023