NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Queens man faces up to 25 years in prison after a Brooklyn federal jury convicted him Tuesday of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business as part of a scheme to launder alleged Bitcoin proceeds of drug trafficking, prosecutors announced.
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According to trial evidence, DEA special agents in July 2018 identified an advertisement posted on localbitcoins.com where an individual with the username "Mustangy" offered to purchase up to $99,999 worth of bitcoins ("BTC"), a digital currency also known as cryptocurrency, and convert them into U.S. currency for a fee.
Law enforcement agents later identified Goklu as the individual using the username Mustangy, whose real name is Mustafa Goklu, 50.
An undercover DEA agent began exchanging encrypted text messages with Goklu on July 11, 2018, to arrange in-person exchanges of BTC to U.S. currency. The agent and the Mustafa subsequently met and engaged in seven transactions or attempted exchanges of BTC to cash over a nine-month period, leading to Goklu's arrest in April 2019.
The agent indicated to the defendant on multiple occasions that the source of the BTC Goklu was exchanging was narcotics trafficking and that as part of the agent's business he sold oxycodone, Adderall and marijuana.
The transactions occurred in Goklu's parked Mercedes-Benz, at a coffee shop in Sunnyside, Queens, and locations in Manhattan, prosecutors said. The amounts exchanged at each transaction ranged from approximately $5,000 to $50,000, for a total of $133,000.
During each transaction, the undercover agent transferred BTC to Goklu's cryptocurrency wallet, after which Goklu retained a 7 or 8% commission fee and provided the agent with the remaining amount in cash.
The evidence introduced at trial also showed that the defendant was engaged in similar illicit Bitcoin exchanges with multiple other individuals.
"The defendant offered his customers the ability to launder their criminal proceeds, remain anonymous and conceal where their Bitcoin was coming from so they could continue to engage in drug trafficking and other crimes while avoiding law enforcement detection," U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said. "With today's verdict, Goklu's illicit business of converting money from one form to another without a required license has been shut down and the defendant has been convicted for his crimes."
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