PHOENIX (AP) — A Mesa man who was a peer-to-peer bitcoin trader has been convicted of money laundering.
Prosecutors say Thomas Mario Costanzo was found guilty of five counts of money laundering by a federal jury in Phoenix on Wednesday.
He’s scheduled to be sentenced on June 11.
Each of the five convictions for money laundering carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Evidence at trial showed that federal agents began an investigation of Costanzo in 2014 after identifying an advertisement he posted on a peer-to-peer bitcoin exchange website.
Costanzo advertised he was willing to engage in cash transactions up to $50,000.
Over a two-year period, Costanzo took about $165,000 in cash from the agents who he believed to be heroin and cocaine traffickers and exchanged it for bitcoin.