International cryptocurrency provider sentenced to 121 months in prison by the Department of Justice for conspiracy to launder money

U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove sentenced Anurag Pramod Murarka, a 30-year-old Indian national, to 121 months in prison for conspiracy to launder money, according to a Department of Justice announcement. Murarka is a 30-year-old international virtual currency provider operating under two nicknames ("elonmuskwhm" and "la2nyc").
Murarka operated an international money laundering business from April 2021 until September 29, 2023, according to recently published court documents. Murarka often advertised his services online on dark web marketplaces, calling them money laundering services. Clients would then contact him via encrypted messages in response to these advertisements and negotiate exchange rates. Once the exchange rates were determined, Murarka, which is based in India, instructed its clients to send cryptocurrencies to certain cryptocurrency addresses. Murarka then arranged for the cash to be delivered to his employees in the United States through a complex, pre-arranged Indian hawala operation. Murarka's network of employees throughout the United States and overseas would collect cash from Murarka's hawala connections and then package it in various ways, including sandwiched between book pages and sealed in multiple envelopes, before mailing the cash to customers.
Murarka collects fees for his services and uses some of them to bribe employees and co-conspirators. Murarka knows that many of his clients are involved in criminal activity, particularly computer hacking and drug trafficking, so he knows that his business facilitates criminal activity by assisting in concealing the origin of illegal activity. Murarka and his co-conspirators laundered more than $20 million in total.