GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Christopher Boden, Daniel Reynold DeJager and Leesa Beth Vogt, leaders of the local tech-based organization The Geek Group, were sentenced on Friday for illegal Bitcoin trading.
Boden, 46, of Grand Rapids, pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, money laundering and structuring deposits to evade financial institution reporting requirements.
Boden was sentenced to 30 months in prison and three years supervised release for the three charges. He was also ordered to pay $75,000 and forfeit Bitcoin.
DeJager, 35, of Tacoma, Washington, also pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, money laundering and structuring deposits to evade financial institution reporting requirements.
DeJager was sentenced to 10 months in prison and was ordered to pay $25,000.
Vogt, 37, of Grand Rapids, pled guilty to structuring while operating the unlicensed money transmitting business. She was sentenced to four years of probation and ordered to pay $62,711.
The charges were originally filed against Boden, DeJager and Vogt in March 2021. All three pled guilty in October.
Authorities say The Geek Group illegally bought and sold crypto currency without being licensed with the U.S. Department of Treasury as a money services or transmitting business.
In court, DeJager explained that he and Boden began the operation because they were drawn to the "possibility of making a lot of money while deposing government controlled currency with one that was anonymous.”
Authorities say The Geek Group's customers included drug dealers, and that people chose to buy Bitcoin from the company because their Bitcoin was "clean," meaning it could not be traced.
DeJager and Boden also said they took measures to avoid being caught by anti-money-laundering controls.
“These defendants knew they were breaking the law and ran their illegal money transmitting business anyway,” said U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge. “In addition to laundering money for their customers, some of whom were involved in drug trafficking, they set about to defeat the antimoney-laundering controls of licensed financial institutions. My hope is the Court’s sentences will deter others who think cryptocurrency operates in a lawless environment from committing similar financial crimes.”
The Geek Group building was raided by the IRS and Homeland Security Investigations in 2018.
Prosecutors alleged that $740,000 in cryptocurrency was sold between March 2017 and December 2018.
The Geek Group shut down shortly after the initial raid in 2018.
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