According to Morocco World News, a Frenchman was sentenced to 18 months in prison for purchasing a luxury car with Bitcoin and giving a fake cheque to another vendor in exchange for luxury watches.
The Court of Appeal in Casablanca, Morocco, therefore sentenced the 21-year-old French national Thomas Clausi to 18 months in prison and ordered him to pay compensation to the victims.
Accordingly, his attorney, Mohamed Aghanaj, stated that he was nearing the end of his sentence. The defendant will spend one month and a few days in prison, beginning with his incarceration.
The accused previously purchased a Ferrari from a Frenchwoman in Morocco for a total of $440,000 in Bitcoins. Later, she reported him for fraud to the authorities.
Clausi also purchased three prestige watches from a second man but gave him a bogus cheque, which led the second man to report Clausi to the authorities.
Initially, the defendant made payments with unapproved cryptocurrencies in Morocco. Accordingly, the country’s local laws deemed the procedure illegal. In the second instance, Clausi committed fraud by writing a cheque that could not be cashed due to insufficient funds.
The Frenchman was arrested in December of 2021 after the event reports served as a basis for the legal actions against him. The court has now mandated that he compensate the watch’s rightful owner the equivalent of $4,000. He will also pay 3,4 million euros to customs authorities.
Although Morocco does not support crypto payments, its adoption and utilization among locals continue to rise. Al-Maghrib, the country’s central bank, has stated its intention to create rules for the usage of cryptocurrency by the general public in 2022.
The bank made the announcement during a press conference and mentioned the formation of a committee to manage the transition. However, while the bank’s outline law intended to regulate crypto utilization, the Alawi kingdom opposed the move.
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