TL;DR: A Colombian crypto broker received a 160-month prison sentence in a US laundering and narcotics case, prosecutors announced October 21. The account describes a scheme moving criminal proceeds through Tether and US shell companies.

A New York federal judge has sentenced Leonardo de Jesus Zuluaga Duque to 160 months in prison in a case involving cryptocurrency, drug proceeds and transfers through the US banking system.

The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence on Wednesday. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil also imposed five years of supervised release and ordered forfeiture of $14,751,846, according to prosecutors.

The office described Zuluaga Duque as a Colombia-based crypto broker with a supervisory role in the network. It said he and others helped launder approximately $14.5 million in Tether derived from drug trafficking between May and November 2023.

The Route Ran Through Both Crypto And Banks

Prosecutors’ account describes proceeds converted into Tether, passed to an unlicensed money-transmission business and exchanged for US dollars. US shell companies then transferred funds to Colombian companies before the money was converted into pesos and distributed.

The token transfer was one link in a chain that also depended on companies, currency conversion and banking access. The proceeds ultimately reached recipients in local currency, prosecutors said.

Monitoring a blockchain address alone would not necessarily explain the commercial purpose of an associated bank transfer. Conversely, a bank record might show the receiving company without revealing the earlier token movement. Reconstructing the entire route requires connecting those pieces.

The approximately $14.5 million laundering figure describes the Tether transactions attributed to the group. The separate forfeiture order sets the amount Zuluaga Duque must surrender under the sentence; adding those figures would overstate the proceeds described in the case.

The prison term exceeds 13 years. Afterward, Zuluaga Duque faces the additional five-year period of supervised release announced by prosecutors.

Related Reading

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• Mastercard Introduces Fraud Screening Before Stablecoin Payments Go On-Chain

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

CME Group has scheduled the introduction of Bitcoin Cash and Uniswap futures for October 19, giving institutional derivatives traders two more cryptocurrency markets to access through a regulated venue.

TL;DR: CME previously announced BCH and UNI futures for an October 19 launch, subject to regulatory review. Standard and micro contracts are planned for both assets.

The exchange first disclosed the expansion on September 22. That timing matters: this is the scheduled start of an already announced product, not a surprise decision taken this morning. CME lists standard Bitcoin Cash contracts of 250 BCH and micro contracts of 25 BCH. For Uniswap, the respective sizes are 10,000 UNI and 1,000 UNI.

These contracts are designed to let market participants manage price exposure without arranging custody of the underlying tokens. That suits trading firms and institutions that already use futures as part of a wider portfolio or hedging operation. It also gives two assets outside the largest cryptocurrencies another route into institutional market infrastructure.

Uniswap is a particularly interesting addition because its token sits in the decentralized-finance sector. The existence of a listed futures contract does not itself establish demand for a future exchange-traded fund, nor should a derivatives launch be treated as evidence that regulators have approved any spot ETF.

CME says the planned additions respond to customer demand for risk-management tools. The exchange’s crypto product range already extends beyond Bitcoin and Ether, and the new contracts continue that approach.

The remaining detail traders should watch is the exchange’s confirmation of regulatory clearance and live trading. A published target date is not the same as confirmation that every contract has begun trading.

Written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.