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Firoz Patel, the founder of Canadian crypto payments app Payza, was sentenced to an additional 41 months in prison by a federal court judge in Washington, DC, for attempting to obstruct an official proceeding.
This sentence comes in addition to his prior conviction for money laundering charges. In September, Patel admitted to one count of obstruction after the Department of Justice announced the charge on February 6.
The obstruction stemmed from Patel’s efforts to conceal and launder 450 Bitcoin, valued at over $43.5 million, which he was initially ordered to forfeit following his 2020 guilty plea. At that time, he was convicted of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and engaging in money laundering through Payza, a platform that was found to process cryptocurrency payments illegally in the US and facilitate transactions for money launderers and various fraudulent schemes.
In 2020, Patel’s sentence included three years of imprisonment and two years of supervised release. He was also mandated to surrender any assets gained through his operation of Payza. Despite claiming to possess only $30,000 in a retirement account, Patel undertook a series of actions to hide his Bitcoin assets.
He attempted to deposit the Bitcoin with Binance, but after the exchange flagged and closed his account in April 2021, he moved to transfer the funds to an account at Blockchain.com under his father’s name. This attempt was also thwarted as the exchange froze the funds upon detection.
Patel’s deceptive tactics continued as he instructed an associate to provide false identification to Blockchain.com to regain access to the frozen assets. Furthermore, while serving his three-year term, he became aware of the ongoing investigation into the concealed Bitcoin and engaged someone to impersonate a lawyer in an attempt to mislead prosecutors and escape further legal consequences upon his nearing release.
Ultimately, the scheme was uncovered, and Patel faced additional charges before his scheduled release. Judge Dabney Friedrich has now ordered Patel to forfeit over $24 million in addition to the 450 Bitcoin currently held by Blockchain.com and imposed a subsequent three-year term of supervised release following his extended incarceration.
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