It is a rare and complicated affair that we succeed in penetrating the investigators.
This Friday, the prosecutor's office for the specialized interregional jurisdiction of Nancy (Jirs) announced in a press release that the manager of an Alsatian real estate company, suspected of having embezzled "several million euros" in cryptocurrency to the detriment of his company, was indicted and imprisoned.
As part of a preliminary investigation opened "for abuse of corporate assets and laundering of proceeds from corporate assets", the judicial police of Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin) carried out a seizure worth 2.5 million euros. euros in USD Tether, a cryptocurrency issued by the company Tether, the same source said.
Cryptocurrency is a virtual currency of exchange.
The best known is Bitcoin.
Investigators established that "the misappropriation of assets" concerned "several million euros" and was committed to the prejudice of a company, the object of which was to carry out transactions in the real estate sector.
A currency whose value is linked to the dollar
“During one of these operations, part of its assets were diverted to another company and converted into cryptocurrency, in particular USD Tether,” said the Jirs prosecutor's office.
USD Tether is a digital asset whose value is tied to that of the dollar.
"Unlike other cryptocurrencies, its price experiences limited fluctuations, thus ensuring relative security for its holder," added the same source.
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The company director, a man in his forties, was indicted, "in particular for abuse of corporate assets and money laundering," said the Jirs prosecution.
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He stressed that "the use of cryptocurrencies in such large quantities is rarely observed in economic and financial investigations relating to offenses of misuse of common law corporate assets, unrelated to cybercrime".
