Fintech owner laundered millions with bitcoin for finger cutter drug lord, police say
Belgian authorities have accused a London fintech business owner of using Binance to help launder hundreds of millions of euros into bitcoin for the benefit of criminals, including a Belgian drug lord known as the “finger cutter” and a Brazilian drug kingpin equivalent to Pablo Escobar. As reported by Bloomberg, Belgian authorities are seeking to extradite 38-year-old Caio Marchesani from the UK. Marchesani “knowingly and intentionally” laundered the funds of international drug traffickers into bitcoin, authorities say. Two of Marchesanis alleged clients were Flor Bressers and Sergio Roberto De Carvalho. Bressers, a.k.a. the “finger cutter,” was a notorious drug lord who used pruning sheers to slice off a criminal‘s fingers whilst also kidnapping and beating up a Dutch florist who failed to transport his drugs. Marchesani is accused of managing 14 Binance accounts on Bressers’ behalf before he was arrested in February 2022. A Binance spokesperson said the crypto exchange has given “practical operational assistance” to authorities in relation to the investigation. Carvalho was known as “the Brazilian Pablo Escobar.” He was the kingpin for an international drug trafficking operation and was arrested in June, 2022. Carvalho was charged with money laundering, falsifying documents, staging his own death, and homicide in pursuit of drug