in an investigation into the Bitzlato platform released in France

A 28-year-old Ukrainian, Mykhailo L., was arrested during an international raid in January 2023. The French justice system suspects him of being the CEO of Bitzlato, accused of laundering criminal assets until early 2023.

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For any authorization request, contact syndication@lemonde.fr. Mykhailo L., a 28-year-old Ukrainian man whom the French justice system considers its main suspect in an investigation into the cryptocurrency exchange platform Bitzlato, was released at the end of September, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a source close to the case on Saturday, October 12. Paris accuses the platform of having laundered criminal assets until the beginning of 2023. According to the same source, the Paris Court of Appeal placed this man under judicial supervision on September 24. In January 2023, Washington and Paris jointly announced an international crackdown with the arrest of Anatoli Legkodimov, the Russian founder and main shareholder of Bitzlato, a man in Portugal, one in Cyprus and three others in Spain, including Mykhailo L. Twenty million euros of criminal assets were also seized. Bitzlato was then presented by the Paris prosecutor's office as a platform allowing "the rapid conversion of crypto assets (...) into rubles" in order to "launder funds obtained through illegal activities (scams, sales on darknet markets [the dark part of the Web not referenced by search engines] and ransomware, etc.)"