Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs detained a 17-year-old resident of Bukhara for providing cryptocurrency exchange services via Telegram, according to the agency’s press service.

Investigators revealed that over a period of seven months, the teenager conducted more than 4,000 transactions on Binance, totaling 34 billion soms ($2.6 million). He charged clients a commission for his intermediary services.

Authorities discovered that most of the transferred funds originated from pension, salary, and credit cards. This has led to an investigation into whether the suspect was laundering money obtained through fraudulent means.

The investigation is ongoing.

Since January 2024, Uzbekistan has implemented fines and prison sentences for illegal cryptocurrency operations. The country also requires mandatory registration for cryptocurrency service providers, and unlicensed trading platforms are subject to blocking.

Previously, authorities fined Binance for operating without proper authorization.

In June, a court sentenced a Tashkent resident to five days in jail for conducting transactions on Binance. Another individual, who attempted to sell coins earned in the game Notcoin, was sentenced to ten days.

Warnings of administrative liability were also issued to participants of the game Hamster Kombat.