Instead, he misled the court, claiming his finances were limited to $30,000 in retirement savings, when in reality, he was sitting on a Bitcoin fortune.
Patel moved the funds across crypto exchanges in an attempt to keep them beyond the government’s reach.
First, he funneled the Bitcoin into Binance, but the platform flagged and shut down his account in April 2021, citing compliance violations.
Patel then shifted the stash to an offshore exchange using an account in his father’s name and linked it to a Belize-based address used for Payza. That exchange also froze the funds, recognizing the transaction as suspicious.