The US court sentenced a descendant of the Cartier family to 8 years in prison in a $470 million cryptocurrency money laundering case.

**April 29 – A U.S. court sentenced Maximilien de Hoop Cartier, a descendant of the Cartier luxury brand family, to 8 years in prison for running an unlicensed OTC cryptocurrency exchange and helping transfer over $470 million in drug trafficking proceeds.** Cartier had previously pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmission business and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Per prosecutors, his network relied on dozens of U.S. shell companies and more than a dozen U.S. bank accounts. He lied to financial institutions about his business’s true nature—falsely claiming he ran a software publishing and development firm—to keep the accounts active. The scheme worked like this: Cartier received illicit funds as cryptocurrency, converted them to cash, deposited the cash into shell company accounts, passed it to other nodes in the money-laundering network, and finally withdrew the funds in Colombian currency. The court also ordered the seizure of roughly $2.36 million in commissions Cartier earned, plus the bank accounts tied to his shell companies.