Raul Rodriguez

🔴 High Risk

Raul Rodriguez’s case demonstrates how an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange operation can create a direct money-laundering channel in the United States by converting illicit digital assets into difficult-to-trace physical cash. Operating from Miami through LocalBitcoins between 2016 and 2022, Rodriguez exchanged at least $5.047 million in cryptocurrency while charging fees and serving customers that included an online narcotics trafficker and a professional money launderer. Although his conviction was formally for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business—not a separate money-laundering charge—the DOJ stated that his operation converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash. His 57-month federal prison sentence, three years of supervised release, and $5.047 million forfeiture judgment underscore the seriousness of the U.S. enforcement action and highlight the AML vulnerabilities created when high-volume peer-to-peer crypto exchange services operate outside licensing, customer due diligence, transaction monitoring, and suspicious-activity reporting requirements.

Raul Rodriguez, a Miami resident known online as “raultiovigia,” operated a U.S.-based digital-currency conversion business from 2016 to 2022 without the required money-transmitter registration and licensing. Using LocalBitcoins.com, he exchanged cash for Bitcoin and other digital currency, and digital currency back into cash, charging customers a fee. Rodriguez admitted that his business exchanged at least $5.047 million in digital currency and that it served an online narcotics trafficker and a professional money launderer.

Countries Involved

The principal country involved was the United States, specifically Miami, Florida, within the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Rodriguez resided in Miami, operated the exchange activity there, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. The case was investigated by U.S. federal law-enforcement agencies: IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The publicly available DOJ material identifies Rodriguez’s activity as affecting interstate and foreign commerce through a digital-currency business, but it does not specify foreign jurisdictions, foreign financial institutions, overseas wallet providers, foreign source countries, or identifiable cross-border beneficiaries. Therefore, the evidence supports a United States-focused AML case file. Any claim that a particular foreign country was operationally involved would require supporting court filings, blockchain tracing records, exchange account data, mutual legal assistance records, or other primary evidence not contained in the DOJ releases.

The international element is nonetheless relevant from a risk perspective because cryptocurrency can move quickly across borders, and LocalBitcoins was a peer-to-peer online platform with an international user base. Yet the legally established conduct in this case remains centered in Florida: cash was exchanged for cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency was exchanged back to cash for customers, including criminally exposed clients, through an unregistered and unlicensed money-transmitting business. The money-laundering risk was therefore domestic cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash conversion occurring in the United States, even where the underlying assets or counterparties may have had wider digital-asset exposure.

Date Discovered / Reported

The conduct covered the period from 2016 through 2022, according to Rodriguez’s plea agreement. During the first two years of that period, he was reportedly the highest-volume digital-currency trader on LocalBitcoins.com in Florida. This extended operating period is important because it indicates that the conduct was not an isolated transaction or a short-lived informal trading arrangement; the government characterized it as a sustained, fee-based money-transmitting business that operated for more than five years without the required registration and licensing.

The federal prosecution became publicly reported when the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida announced Rodriguez’s guilty plea on January 23, 2024. At that point, the DOJ stated that he had admitted converting cash into Bitcoin and other digital currency for customers in exchange for fees and had exchanged at least $5,047,462 in digital currency. The guilty-plea announcement also stated that he admitted serving an online narcotics trafficker and a professional money launderer, both previously prosecuted in the district.

The case reached its principal sentencing milestone on April 2, 2024, when DOJ announced that Rodriguez had been sentenced to 57 months in federal prison. That sentencing release provided stronger and more explicit wording on the laundering nexus, describing the business as one that “converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash.” It also confirmed the final forfeiture money judgment of $5,047,462 and the three-year supervised-release term. For reporting purposes, January 23, 2024 may be used as the public guilty-plea date, while April 2, 2024 should be used as the confirmed sentencing and enforcement-outcome date.

Cryptocurrency Involved

Bitcoin (BTC) and other unspecified digital currencies. DOJ publicly identifies Bitcoin but does not provide a complete list of other assets used.

Type of Crime

The offence of conviction was operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1960. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to this federal charge, which applies to prohibited money-transmission activity, including operating without the required state licensing or federal registration framework. The DOJ stated that FinCEN had publicly clarified as early as March 2013 that an administrator or exchanger of virtual currency, such as Bitcoin, was required to register with the Secretary of the Treasury as a money-transmitting business. Rodriguez nevertheless operated an unregistered and unlicensed business for over five years.

The case has a substantial money-laundering component. The sentencing release stated that Rodriguez operated an unlicensed business that “converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash.” His customers included a convicted drug trafficker and a professional money launderer. The public reporting based on court documents identified these customers as Oslanir Delisle, a narcotics trafficker, and Vitali Kvashenko, a professional money launderer; both had previously been prosecuted and sentenced in the Southern District of Florida. On one observed occasion, law enforcement reportedly saw Rodriguez provide Delisle with tens of thousands of dollars in a plastic bag in exchange for digital currency at Rodriguez’s residence.

The appropriate typology description is: unlicensed virtual-asset money transmission facilitating the conversion of illicit cryptocurrency proceeds into cash. It is important not to overstate the conviction. The DOJ releases do not say that Rodriguez was convicted of a separate money-laundering count, narcotics trafficking, or participation in every customer’s underlying predicate offence. Still, he admitted operating the illegal money-transmission business, and the DOJ’s post-sentencing description expressly connects the service to cryptocurrency drug proceeds. This creates a verified U.S. laundering-facilitation case rather than merely a licensing technicality.

Entities Involved

Raul Rodriguez was the central individual in the case. He was a Miami-based digital-currency exchanger who used the online name “raultiovigia.” Court-document reporting identifies his business as RV Electronic Service Corp. The business received cash from clients and supplied them with digital currency; it also exchanged digital currency—frequently Bitcoin—for cash. The activity was conducted for fees reportedly ranging from 3.5% to 10%, an important factor showing that the service was commercial and fee-generating rather than personal cryptocurrency investing.

LocalBitcoins.com was the online peer-to-peer digital-currency trading platform through which Rodriguez offered or facilitated his exchange services to the public. Public sources do not allege that LocalBitcoins itself was a defendant or co-conspirator in this case. It should therefore be described as the platform used by Rodriguez, not as an entity accused of wrongdoing in the prosecution. The distinction is important for legal accuracy and adverse-media screening.

The customer-side entities or individuals publicly identified include a convicted drug trafficker and a professional money launderer. The Miami Herald, relying on court documents, named them as Oslanir Delisle and Vitali Kvashenko, respectively. The federal investigative and prosecutorial entities were IRS-CI Miami, the FBI Miami Field Office, the DEA Miami Field Division, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Browne prosecuted the case, while Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Stone handled asset forfeiture at sentencing. These agencies’ involvement reinforces that the case was handled as a significant federal financial-crime and drug-proceeds matter.

PEP Involvement

No — no politically exposed person involvement is identified in the publicly available DOJ releases or the cited court-document reporting. The disclosed participants were Raul Rodriguez, his unlicensed digital-currency exchange business, an online narcotics trafficker, and a professional money launderer. None is described as a current or former senior public official, a family member of a PEP, or a known close associate of a PEP.

For enhanced due diligence purposes, this should not be interpreted as proof that no PEP relationship existed anywhere in the wider transaction network. Rather, it means that no such connection has been publicly substantiated by the materials reviewed. PEP status is an identity- and relationship-based designation, not an inference that can be drawn from a person’s involvement in cryptocurrency or criminal activity. The record instead supports a different risk profile: an unlicensed virtual-asset exchange operator interacting with customers linked to drug trafficking and professional money laundering.

A defensible compliance-file entry would read: “No publicly reported PEP involvement. Publicly available DOJ releases and media reporting based on court documents identify criminally associated customers but do not identify any politically exposed person, public officeholder, PEP relative, or close associate.” That wording avoids both unsupported negative certainty and unjustified PEP labeling.

Additional verification would be needed before relying on this conclusion for customer onboarding, sanctions screening, beneficial-ownership analysis, or a formal suspicious-activity investigation. Such verification could include screening Rodriguez, RV Electronic Service Corp., known counterparties, wallet-associated identities, and related beneficial owners against current PEP databases and adverse-media records. Based on the available sources, however, there is no disclosed PEP nexus; the principal risk concerns unlicensed U.S. money transmission and the conversion of cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash.

Laundering Techniques Used

The core technique was crypto-to-cash and cash-to-crypto conversion through an unlicensed intermediary. Rodriguez accepted cash and provided Bitcoin or other digital currency, and he also accepted digital currency and paid out cash. This conversion function could be used to obscure the transition between illicit proceeds and assets that could be transferred through the cryptocurrency ecosystem or spent in the physical cash economy. DOJ stated that the business converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash, which is a direct laundering typology because it allows criminally derived digital assets to be liquidated into ostensibly usable fiat currency.

A second technique was the use of a peer-to-peer digital-currency platform, LocalBitcoins.com, to offer exchange services to the public. Peer-to-peer platforms can enable counterparties to transact without using a conventional bank or fully regulated centralized exchange as the direct exchange counterparty. In this case, the legal issue was not merely platform use; it was Rodriguez’s operation of a fee-based, high-volume conversion business without the relevant registration and license. His high transaction volume and public customer-facing activity made him functionally comparable to an informal virtual-asset service provider.

A third indicator was the use of cash handoffs. Court-document reporting states that law enforcement saw Rodriguez give a narcotics trafficker tens of thousands of dollars in a plastic bag in exchange for digital currency at Rodriguez’s home. Cash-based settlement can reduce conventional banking visibility and eliminate bank-level transaction records that might otherwise support source-of-funds review, suspicious-activity monitoring, or tracing. The reported fee range of 3.5% to 10% also suggests that Rodriguez was compensated for providing this conversion and liquidity service.

The public sources do not substantiate additional techniques such as cryptocurrency mixers, tumblers, chain-hopping, peel chains, privacy coins, mule accounts, shell companies, trade-based laundering, or falsified invoices. These should not be attributed to Rodriguez without primary evidence. The confirmed mechanism is an unlicensed, fee-charging cryptocurrency exchange operation that facilitated fiat–virtual-asset conversion, including conversion of drug-related cryptocurrency proceeds into cash.

Estimated Value Laundered

The most reliable public figure is at least $5,047,462 in digital currency exchanged from 2016 through 2022. Rodriguez admitted this amount in his plea agreement, and it was repeated in the DOJ sentencing announcement. The court also imposed a $5,047,462 forfeiture money judgment, matching the reported volume exchanged. This amount is the appropriate benchmark for the scale of the unlicensed money-transmission operation.

However, the amount should not automatically be described as “the value of drug proceeds laundered.” The DOJ stated that the business converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash, but neither DOJ release publicly apportions the $5.047 million between legitimate funds, narcotics proceeds, proceeds associated with professional money laundering, or other customer transactions. Therefore, a precise statement that all $5,047,462 constituted laundered narcotics proceeds would exceed the available evidence.

For an AML report, the sound formulation is: “Rodriguez exchanged at least $5.047 million in digital currency through an unlicensed U.S. money-transmitting business. DOJ confirmed that the operation converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash, but public releases do not quantify the subset of total volume directly traceable to drug proceeds or other illicit sources.” This preserves the verified transaction scale while accurately distinguishing total exchange volume from proven illicit-value volume.

The forfeiture judgment is especially significant because it represents a court-ordered financial consequence tied to the operation. It is not merely a law-enforcement estimate or press allegation. The 57-month custodial sentence, three-year supervised-release term, and $5.047 million forfeiture judgment demonstrate the seriousness with which U.S. authorities viewed the scale and illicit-risk characteristics of the unlicensed digital-currency exchange business.

Transaction Analysis Summary

Rodriguez’s transaction model was a recurring, fee-based exchange service that linked cash transactions to cryptocurrency transactions. He converted cash into Bitcoin and other digital currency for customers and converted digital currency back to cash. The DOJ reported at least $5,047,462 in exchanged digital currency over 2016–2022. His status as Florida’s highest-volume LocalBitcoins trader during the first two years of the period is a material indicator of commercial scale and a possible red flag for a business operating without appropriate financial-crime controls.

The flow can be summarized as follows: a customer supplied cash to Rodriguez and received cryptocurrency, or a customer supplied cryptocurrency and received cash. Rodriguez charged a stated fee, reported in court-document coverage as between 3.5% and 10%. This structure provided liquidity to customers seeking to move between banknote-based and blockchain-based value. DOJ’s statement that the business converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash indicates that some transactions followed the second pathway: digital assets derived from drug-related activity were tendered to Rodriguez, who then made cash available to the customer.

The observed transaction involving narcotics trafficker Oslanir Delisle is especially notable. Law enforcement reportedly observed Rodriguez giving Delisle tens of thousands of dollars in a plastic bag in exchange for digital currency at Rodriguez’s residence. This indicates a high-value physical cash settlement outside ordinary bank channels. The presence of a professional money launderer, identified in court-document reporting as Vitali Kvashenko, further heightened the operation’s risk profile.

The public sources do not provide wallet addresses, transaction dates, transaction hashes, bank accounts, cash-deposit records, exact customer-by-customer volumes, or a blockchain tracing analysis. Accordingly, no granular on-chain attribution can be made from the record reviewed. The available evidence nonetheless supports the conclusion that Rodriguez ran a high-volume U.S.-based fiat–crypto conversion business without registration or licensing, and that the business handled transactions associated with drug proceeds and money-laundering clients.

Regulatory/Enforcement Actions Taken

U.S. authorities conducted a criminal investigation led by IRS Criminal Investigation’s Miami Field Office, with assistance from the FBI Miami Field Office and the DEA Miami Field Division. The prosecution was handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. This multi-agency response reflects the intersection of financial-crime enforcement, cryptocurrency oversight, narcotics-proceeds investigations, and asset forfeiture.

The formal criminal action was a charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1960 for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in January 2024. DOJ noted that virtual-currency administrators or exchangers had been required by FinCEN since 2013 to register as money-transmitting businesses, but Rodriguez operated unregistered and unlicensed for more than five years. This was also a Florida licensing issue: court-document reporting noted that Florida requires an individual or business engaged in money transmission to be licensed.

On April 2, 2024, Rodriguez was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $5,047,462 forfeiture money judgment. Asset forfeiture was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Stone, while Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Browne prosecuted the criminal case. These sanctions demonstrate that the United States treated the unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange operation as a serious federal offence with both imprisonment and financial-disgorgement consequences.

For compliance documentation, the enforcement result should be recorded as a criminal conviction and sentence—not merely a regulatory penalty, administrative fine, or unresolved accusation. The public case record is available through the Southern District of Florida under Case No. 23-cr-20474.

Links to Reports / Sources

Case Title / Operation Name:

Raul Rodriguez

Country(s) Involved:

United States

Platform / Exchange Used:

LocalBitcoins.com — peer-to-peer digital-currency trading platform used by Rodriguez to offer cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash exchange services.

Cryptocurrency Involved:

Bitcoin (BTC) and other unspecified digital currencies. DOJ publicly identifies Bitcoin but does not provide a complete list of other assets used.

Volume Laundered (USD est.):

At least USD 5,047,462 in digital currency exchanged from 2016 to 2022. This reflects total admitted exchange volume and the forfeiture money judgment; public sources do not quantify the precise portion proven to be drug proceeds.

Wallet Addresses / TxIDs :

N/A

Method of Laundering:

Unlicensed cash-to-cryptocurrency and cryptocurrency-to-cash conversion; peer-to-peer exchange activity through LocalBitcoins; fee-based digital-asset conversion; physical cash settlements; conversion of cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash. The available record does not confirm use of mixers, tumblers, privacy coins, chain-hopping, NFTs, ICOs, or DeFi protocols.

Source of Funds:

Cryptocurrency drug proceeds. Rodriguez admitted serving an online narcotics trafficker and a professional money launderer. DOJ stated that his unlicensed exchange business converted cryptocurrency drug proceeds into cash. The public record does not disclose a full transaction-level breakdown of illicit versus non-illicit funds.

Associated Shell Companies:

RV Electronic Service Corp. was identified in court-document reporting as Rodriguez’s business. It should not be automatically characterized as a shell company based solely on the reviewed sources; no additional shell companies were publicly identified.

PEPs or Individuals Involved:

Raul Rodriguez, also known as “raultiovigia”; Oslanir Delisle, identified in court-document reporting as a convicted narcotics trafficker; Vitali Kvashenko, identified as a professional money launderer. No publicly reported politically exposed person involvement.

Law Enforcement / Regulatory Action:

IRS Criminal Investigation, FBI Miami Field Office, and DEA Miami Field Division investigated. Rodriguez pleaded guilty in January 2024 to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business under 18 U.S.C. § 1960. On April 2, 2024, he was sentenced to 57 months’ federal imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a USD 5,047,462 forfeiture money judgment.

Year of Occurrence:

2024 — publicly reported guilty plea on January 23, 2024; sentencing announced April 2, 2024. Underlying exchange activity occurred from 2016 through 2022.

Ongoing Case:

Closed

AML Network Risk Rating:

🔴 High Risk