Montreal Businessman Gets 3.5 Years in U.S. for Bitcoin Laundering

Firoz Patel, a Montreal guy, faces more prison time. He got sentenced in the U.S. for money laundering. It involves $43 million US in Bitcoin. This follows his earlier conviction for illegal business.

Patel, age 50, admitted to obstructing justice. He tried hiding the Bitcoin from U.S. prosecutors. He pleaded guilty.

In 2020, he was first sentenced to 36 months for conspiracy charges. He ran Payza, a payment processing company that handled risky things, including Ponzi and pyramid schemes.

CBC did investigations about Patel with the help of leaked papers provided by the International Consortium of Journalists. CBC and The Toronto Star worked together on this.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, now on the U.S. Supreme Court, sentenced Patel. She ordered Patel to forfeit 450 Bitcoin, worth $24 million US back then, and now worth $43 million US.

Patel told the court he had few assets, claiming only $30,000 US in savings. This was a lie.

He tried moving Payza’s illegal crypto to deposit them with Binance, a crypto exchange. This happened right after sentencing, before he went to prison.

Binance froze those funds, so Patel then tried an offshore account, which also got flagged. American police started an investigation.

Patel learned about the Bitcoin probe and got someone to act like a lawyer. This fake lawyer negotiated with prosecutors, with the goal to wait out Patel’s 36-month sentence, then he planned to escape to Canada.

Investigators caught on to his trick and indicted Patel in May 2023.