Michigan man accused of illegal bitcoin exchange

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According to the indictment published by Detroit TV news service WD-IV on Friday, 52-year-old Bradley Anthony Stetkiw exchanged through the site LocalBitcoins, conducting transactions in restaurants in the Bloomfield area. Stetkiw is alleged to have sold bitcoin within the business enterprise for about two years in a volume that would have forced him to obey the federal rules for combating money laundering.

Of the total, the documents, filed with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, state that Stetkiw sold more than $56,000 bitcoin to federal agents in six meetings.

Stetkiw, in particular, is not the first user of LocalBitcoins to be charged for trading bitcoin. Earlier this year, Detroit resident Sal Mansy pleaded guilty to committing an unlicensed business for money services. He allegedly conducted transactions in the amount of $2.4 million over a two-year period ending in July 2015.

Other arrests in Missouri and New York suggest that actions against independent vendors of bitcoin in the United States are becoming more commonplace.