INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) โ Hamilton County man Maximiliano Pilipis is in federal custody in Florida.
As of Tuesday night, I-Team 8 did not know what specific charges it faces, but in November, the government seized more than $9 million from two separate bank accounts.
Court documents allege that Pilipis illegally operated a cryptocurrency exchange company in the small Caribbean country of Dominica.
Professor Frank Emmert of the IU McKinney School of Law said: "We have been very active in doing offshore business, and this is one case in a very, very long list of cases."
Emmert analyzed the 20-page court file that seized the money from Pilipis. He told I-Team 8 that the seizure was because Pilipis failed to register his company with a government agency called FinCEN.
โIt means the Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network. Its main, but not exclusive, job is basically to prevent money laundering and tax evasion. The Treasury wants to make sure that, on the one hand, our businesses and our citizens pay their taxes, our residents pay their taxes correctly and, on the other hand, that the money is not used to commit crimes. For example, financing of terrorism or something like that.โ
The federal court filing to seize the money has several diagrams detailing how Pilipis moved cryptocurrency from one account to another. The filing said the transactions are money laundering because the money he moved came from his business that he operated illegally.
Emmert said he would need to look at official criminal charges to determine whether Pilipis laundered money.
โDid he launder money himself? Did he funnel funds to any organization for illegal purposes? We don't know, but he made it possible for others to do that, for people who were actually registering their wallets and trading through his exchange, and that's really why he's in trouble right now."
Pilipis was scheduled to appear in federal court in Florida on Friday. I-Team 8 will follow the hearing to find out what charges Pilipis could face.
