Romanian Hells Angels leader used bitcoin for drugs and murder, Texas jury finds

The leader of a Romania-based chapter of the Hells Angels was convicted in Texas for a plot that involved trafficking over 400kg of cocaine, arms dealing, money laundering, and using bitcoin to pay for the assassination of two rival gang leaders.

According to the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) announcement last week, 50-year-old Marius Lazar was the founding member of his local Hells Angel chapter in Bucharest, Romania. Following his arrest in November 2020 and subsequent extradition to the US , a jury has now found Lazar guilty of conspiring to commit racketeering, conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, and conspiring to commit money laundering.

Lazar’s sentencing has yet to be scheduled.

Hells Angels leader ordered drugs and assassin with bitcoin

Lazar was brought into a conspiracy through a Hells Angels member from New Zealand that involved ordering 400kg of cocaine from a supposedly powerful drug dealer in the US. What the gang failed to realize, however, was that the dealer was actually an undercover agent of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Lazar ordered the cocaine from the agent and paid for the assassination of two members of a rival motorcycle club in Romania. Close to $1 million in bitcoin and fiat were reportedly sent by the gang as payment. The 50-year-old also offered to supply the undercover agent with “rifles, grenades, armored vehicles, and other military-grade equipment,” in case the murders spiraled into killing US police officers.

Illegal crypto mining rigs found in Poland’s Supreme Administrative Court

Read more: A look inside Tocorón, Venezuela’s gang-run prison that mined bitcoin

Two New Zealanders arrested in the same DEA raid that caught Lazar are also reportedly still on the run. According to the New Zealand Herald, fugitives Murray Michael Matthews and Marc Patrick Johnson were not extradited but instead granted bail by a Romanian court.

It’s reported the pair then fled the country; they remain missing. Mathews is said to be a member of the Hells Angels Auckland chapter while Johnson is reportedly a trained chemist and long-standing meth cook — reportedly one of the very first in New Zealand.

Source