UPDATED 22:53 EDT / JULY 12 2018

EMERGING TECH

‘Bitcoin Maven’ gets a year in jail for selling bitcoin for cash in grocery bags

A woman who ran a trading operation that offered bitcoins for sale in return for cash has been sentenced to 366 days in prison on money laundering charges.

Theresa Lynn Tetley, a 50-year-old former stockbroker from Southern California, was alleged to offer cash for bitcoins under the name of “Bitcoin Maven” via the Localbitcoins.com peer-to-peer crypt bitcoin exchange service.

Tetley was caught in a sting by the Drug Enforcement Administration that saw agents transact with her over a number of months. According to Ars Technica, the sting started in 2016 when she met with an undercover female agent who said that she wanted to buy bitcoin anonymously.

Over a number of transactions, including the agent’s “boyfriend” who was also an undercover agent, a final transaction leading to Tetley’s arrest was a deal, claimed to help facilitate a drug trade, to exchange bitcoin for $300,000 in cash that was held in two Trader Joe’s paper grocery bags.

Although “Bitcoin Maven” was arrested by the DEA, the charges she faced were all financial ones. She is accused of operating an unregistered money exchange business and a failure to comply with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network anti-money-laundering mechanisms such as customer due diligence and reporting certain transactions required for these types of businesses.

“As a result of operating this unregistered business, Tetley facilitated laundering for one individual who is suspected of receiving bitcoin from unlawful activity, such as sales of drugs on the dark web,” the Department of Justice said in a statement. “In the course of her business, Tetley also conducted an exchange of bitcoin-for-cash for an undercover agent who represented that his bitcoin were the proceeds of narcotics trafficking.”

Along with a sentence of 366 days in prison, Tetley was also ordered to forfeit 40 bitcoin, $292,264 in cash and 25 assorted gold bars that were the proceeds of her illegal activity.

Image: Pxhere

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