That makes no sense, "hotpassion" was selling Paypal funds for Bitcoin. I always assumed CM was loaded in Bitcoins. Why would they sell small amounts of Paypal funds?
That's written in government's press-release document. The PayPal account with the name MINH NGUYEN, email address -
nqminh73@yahoo.com.
On December 27, 2022, there was a credit card payment received from MINH NGUYEN, email address 32 Case 2:23-mj-00528 Document 1 Filed 03/14/23 Page 33 of 60 33
nqminh73@yahoo.com for $150.00 with the comment Thanks. This transaction demonstrates the fact that NGUYEN is utilizing a personal payment method to fund operational ChipMixer infrastructure.
He was using
kcrewell01@yahoo.com to help hide his involment in the ChipMixer scheme. Phone number
+84982468446 was used as the recovery phone number for
kcrewell01@yahoo.com. At the same time, this phone number was used as the recovery phone number for
nqminh73@yahoo.com,
minhoba@ymail.com and
minhoba@yahoo.comOpen-source research conducted on the username hotpassion used by NGUYEN revealed this moniker is also used on BitcoinTalk where the profile advertises exchanging bitcoin for fiat currency from PayPal accounts. For example, the user posted Bitcoin to PayPal Pay $170 get 200$ in PayPal. In addition, hotpassion included a link on their BitcoinTalk profile to their account on Bitify. The username on Bitify is LovePayPal and there are comments listed where users purchased balances from PayPal accounts or reference what appears to be the purchasing of stolen identities and identifying documents.
Open-source research conducted on the moniker minhoba used by NGUYEN revealed a post on the forum BlackHatWorld (blackhatworld.com). The user minhoba posted the following on the forum in February 2009 with the title, How To Unlimit Your Paypal Acc
On October 12, 2022, the FBI served a federal search warrant to Google for the account
jamessmithhelp@gmail.com. James Smith was an alias account used by NGUYEN to hide his involvement in ChipMixer. The
jamessmithhelp@gmail.com account listed the name Smith James as the subscriber and
minhoba@ymail.com as the recovery email address. Google records revealed a June 21, 2022, email from Bitify, a Bitcoin and Litecoin marketplace and auction site, which described a payment of 0.00455231 bitcoin to the account for the item Bitcoin to PayPal Pay $100 get 110$ in PayPal by a user whose moniker is the same as the last name of the V3 Subscriber from Hetzner.
Open-source research conducted on Remitano revealed that Remitano is a P2P Bitcoin marketplace for buying and sell bitcoin. Records provided by Remitano for those transactions revealed an account used by NGUYEN with the username hotpassion.
from Remitano also revealed KYC ("Know Your Customer") information including a picture of an individual resembling NGUYEN holding an identification card with the name MINH QUOC NGUYEN and date of birth 10/21/1973. Also included as part of the KYC is a Vietnamese passport (Figure 6) with a picture (Figure 7) resembling the individual in the Binance KYC picture (Figure 4), with the name of MINH QUOC NGUYEN and date of birth 10/21/1973. Also, the picture ID being held in Figure 7 is the same picture ID provided to Binance (Figure 4). The bank account associated is an account at Vietcombank in Vietnam: