Money laundering charges filed
A Latvian developer and artist named Ilya Borisov is in deep trouble as he faces a 12 year sentence after authorities claimed his earnings from his NFT , a total of $8.8M USD , are in fact proceeds from money laundering and and large-scale crime.
The artist had a website titled Art is Crime and he detailed how his funds were frozen by the government without any type of communication. He states that the amount was earned from the sale of his 3,577 NFT releases and the case proceedings against him were started February 2022 but he’s only heard of them this past May.
“The decision was issued on February 10 it says I should get a copy of it , I received it it three months later”
Latvia lacks a proper crypto regulatory committee and ther are not clear crypto tax regulations . The developer goes on to state the he did contact the revenue service of Latvia (VID) and inquired about the proper steps to take to legalize his cryptocurrency income. He finally paid $2.3M in income taxes across 2021 after he was advised by the agency to file as a “self-employed person”.
The money he earned was in 2021 which was the year that saw many NFT platforms boom and become very successful. He considered himself as one of those successful developers. The developer challenged the freezing of his account and was granted access June 30. The order was never acknowledge as the original investigator into his case resigned and was replaced by new prosecutors who were ordered to immediately seize all of his property. Ilyad states he shared all receipts and information with the police in an attempt to be transparent and show that his earnings were legal.
The artist has since then filed an appeal on the decision of the bureau and the prosecutors and he stressed that the prosecutors have made little effort to contact him and get to the bottom of this sitatuaion, he expects things to take longer due to the bureaucratic system and the nature of how things are done in his nation. One such idea was to have th prosectors replaced but a judge denied him this ability . Boris has stated emotional stress along with the potential of being put in jail and losing all of his funds in his appeal. His father recently passed before being able to see his son succeed and he states he is ready to continue to fight.