By Adrianne Jeffries and Russell Brandom

A week ago, 24-year-old Charlie Shrem landed at JFK, home from giving a talk about the virtual currency Bitcoin at an e-commerce convention in Amsterdam.

The trip had gone well. Shrem’s speech made the front page of the Dutch Financial Times, his Icelandair flight had internet, and he was excited to be reunited with his girlfriend, Courtney. He did not expect to be arrested when he got off the plane. But as soon as he saw the agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and IRS waiting for him at the gate, he knew.

Whatever the trouble was, it must have something to do with Bitcoin.

Shrem had never been arrested before, but a magistrate detailed a list of felony charges against him the next morning: one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of failure to file a suspicious activity report, and one count of operating an unlicensed money transmitter, together carrying a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison. Bail was set at $1 million.

The glamorous life Shrem had been building for the past two years suddenly seemed poised to fall apart.