Olumide Osunkoya, a 46-year-old Brit, has been slapped with a four-year prison sentence for illegally running cryptocurrency ATMs across the UK through his company, GidiPlus.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) threw the book at him, and on February 28, 2025, a court convicted him of unregistered crypto activity, forgery, using fake IDs, and possessing criminal property after he pleaded guilty to six counts back on September 30, 2024.
Osunkoya’s operation wasn’t small potatoes—he raked in £2.5 million ($3.2 million) between December 2021 and March 2022, setting up ATMs at multiple spots despite the FCA denying his registration. The agency says he was charging juicy markups—30% to 60% per transaction—making a tidy profit while dodging their rules. The FCA came down hard, filing charges in early September 2024 after sniffing out his unregistered gigs.
Judge Perrins didn’t mince words during sentencing: “Your decision to keep operating illegally was deliberate and calculated defiance of the regulator.” He pointed out Osunkoya went all out to fake his identity, turning a regulatory slap into a full-on criminal mess. The FCA’s Therese Chambers, enforcement director, called it a loud warning shot: “This is the UK’s first criminal sentencing for unregistered crypto activity—it’s a clear message. Break our rules, dodge detection, or dabble in crime, and you’ll face real consequences.”
The FCA’s been on a tear, mandating registration for all crypto outfits in the UK and demanding they play nice with anti-money laundering checks—standards Osunkoya flunked. Their crackdown’s paying off: CoinATMRadar shows crypto ATM spots in the UK dropping from 80 in 2022 to zero in 2024.
Meanwhile, the global tally’s at 37,200 across 69 countries, with the U.S. hogging 29,700 of them. For Osunkoya, those sky-high fees couldn’t dodge the jail bars—the FCA’s making sure crypto’s wild west days in the UK are history.
