A Virginia woman in the Eastern District of Texas has been sentenced to federal prison for participating in a cryptocurrency money laundering scheme. U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston announced that Lois Boyd, 76, of Amelia Court House, Virginia, pleaded guilty to interstate travel in aid of racketeering enterprises on June 14, 2022, and was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge Jeremy D. Kernodle.
Boyd was involved in a transnational money laundering network that laundered criminal proceeds from various fraud schemes. Boyd and her co-conspirators exchanged criminal proceeds for cryptocurrency and directed the cryptocurrency to wallets under the control of their foreign co-conspirators. Boyd and her co-conspirators attempted to exchange approximately $450,000 in criminal proceeds for Bitcoin when they traveled to Longview, Texas, in August 2020.
Boyd was named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury on June 16, 2021, charging her with interstate travel in aid of racketeering enterprises and money laundering. Her co-conspirator, Deependra Bhusal, 47, of Irving, Texas, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison on April 6, 2022, for his role in the cryptocurrency money laundering conspiracy.
The investigation was part of Operation Crypto Runner, an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation, aimed at disrupting and dismantling the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States. The investigation was conducted by the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and was led and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nathaniel C. Kummerfeld and L. Frank Coan, Jr., with assistance from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the Department’s Office of International Affairs. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.
