The first person to be convicted in the UK for running a network of crypto ATMs has been sentenced to four years in prison.
Olumide Osunkoya, 46, had committed “an extremely serious offence”, Judge Gregory Perrins said on Friday at London’s Southwark Crown Court, handing down the sentence.
The UK Financial Conduct Authority brought five charges against Osunkoya last year for unlawfully running multiple crypto ATMs without registration, falsifying documents, and possessing criminal property between December 2021 and September 2023.
Osunkoya pleaded guilty to all of the charges in September 2024.
Crypto ATMs, or CATMs, are machines that let people buy or convert money into crypto assets. Working in a similar way to a typical bank ATM, CATMs can take in cash, convert it to a cryptocurrency such as bitcoin, and send the digital money to a customer’s crypto wallet address.
Authorities around the world have sought to shut crypto ATMs down because they are deemed an ideal way to launder money, with little traceability on where funds come from or where they are sent. Operators typically earn fees on transactions.
Perrins said of crypto ATMs: “When used unscrupulously they are little more than money laundering machines.”
There are no legal crypto ATM operators in the UK. The regulator alleged Osunkoya ran at least 11 CATMs, which processed more than £2.5mn in transactions in the indictment period.
“Your actions were in my judgment deliberate, carefully planned and extremely serious,” said Perrins, adding that Osunkoya’s offences had “required a significant degree of sophistication and planning” and he had made “a high degree of financial gain”.
Osunkoya had “lied repeatedly”, the judge said when handing down the sentence, adding he had acted in “deliberate and calculated defiance to the regulator”. He earned at least £500,000 in profit, the judge said, adding he earned 20 to 30 per cent commission on trades. The FCA has requested the court initiate proceedings to recover any financial benefit Osunkoya made from his crimes.
A barrister for the FCA told the court that Osunkoya had applied to operate CATMs and had been turned down by the regulator in 2021. The watchdog made it clear to Osunkoya that it was an offence for him to continue to run the machines without permission, Matthew Butt KC said.
Osunkoya then created a “fictitious character” named Yarik Wolnik to operate his business under. When Osunkoya was arrested in September 2023 police found £19,500 in his house, which he claimed was for household bills.
Lady-Gené Waszkewitz, acting for Osunkoya, said in mitigation that he had been diagnosed with a “quite severe form of sickle cell disease . . . for which he receives regular treatment”.
Because of his health condition, “there is a real doubt about his ability to be dealt with appropriately in the prison system,” Waszkewitz said, adding he had no prior convictions.
Osunkoya’s family mostly live in Nigeria, where his mother recently suffered a stroke, while he also supports his two-year-old daughter, who lives with her mother in London, Waszkewitz said.
Osunkoya said in pre-trial documents that he needed the money from operating crypto ATMs to support the cost of his sister’s cancer treatment. But Perrins said the court had seen no evidence to support this.
The maximum sentence for forgery and using a false instrument is up to 10 years in prison, for possession of criminal property it is up to 14 years in prison and for operating of crypto ATMs without FCA registration it is two years.
“This is the UK’s first criminal sentencing for unregistered crypto activity and sends a clear message: those who flout our rules, seek to evade detection and engage in criminal activity will face serious consequences,” said Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA.