Tag Archives: Money Laundering

Israeli authorities have arrested three individuals suspected of defrauding the French state treasury. The undercover investigation was carried out jointly by the Israel police and the Israel Tax Authority over the last few months. Foreign investigative agencies – Europol and the French Police – also cooperated. As per Reuters, the investigators are looking into a potential “large-scale fraud” that they believe was committed against the state treasury in France. The crime,...

A man has been charged with bitcoin money laundering crimes in the state of New York. Thomas Spieker – a former party producer – worked with several illicit and dark web clients, many of whom were hackers, drug pushers, and mobsters to hide their illicit gains through cryptocurrency. Thomas Spieker Charged with Crypto Money Laundering It is believed that Spieker laundered as much as $2.3 million worth of bitcoin, the world’s number one digital currency, for several...

According to a new document published by blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis, nearly $9 billion in crypto funds were laundered last year by cybercriminals. Overall, as much as $8.6 billion was placed in illegitimate projects and companies or washed to appear legitimate. Chainalysis Says Nearly $9 Billion Was Laundered The good news is that while this number is about 30 percent larger than the number witnessed in the year 2020, it is considerably smaller than the $10.9...

The blockchain-based data platform – Chainalysis – estimated that the total cryptocurrency value laundered in 2021 was $8.6 billion – 30% more than 2020. According to the company, though, such an increase is somewhat expected given the considerable growth of the asset class in the past year. Crypto Money-Laundering Is on The Rise In its most recent report, Chainalysis informed that cybercriminals dealing with cryptocurrencies share one common goal: move their “ill-gotten...

The Israeli pensioner Esther Freeman has reportedly turned an ILS 10,000 Bitcoin investment, worth roughly $3K at that time, into ILS 1,000,000 (~$324K) in eight years. However, Hapoalim Bank – one of the largest in the country – denied accepting the profits as the initial investment source might have had a connection to illegal financial operations. Cash Is The Problem In 2013 a 69-year old retired citizen of Israel, Esther Freeman, decided to enter the cryptocurrency market...

The government of Kazakhstan reportedly plans to put local companies working with digital assets under its regulatory scope. According to a proposed bill, those entities will have to give detailed information about their crypto operations to the country’s financial watchdogs to prove they have no connections to money-laundering schemes. Kazakhstan May Tighten Its Crypto Rules As reported by the local media Sputnik, the National Parliament of Kazakhstan passed a bill to make...

The American authorities have accused the Baltimore resident – Ryan Farace – of laundering2,933 BTC between October 2019 and April 2021. Interestingly, the man was sent to jail in 2018 and has presumably executed the criminal activities from behind bars. ‘Xanaxman’ Dealing with Bitcoin Even from Prison According to The Baltimore Sun, officials of the state of Maryland had pressed charges against Ryan Farace – also know as “Xanaxman” – for laundering 2,933 BTC over the period...

Less than a year after Chainalysis placed BitMEX into its “high risk” cryptocurrency exchanges zone, the company has reversed its decision. The analytics company has conducted an internal review of the derivatives exchanges, which has strived to improve its AML compliance lately. BitMEX faced extreme scrutiny last year when most of its executives at the time, including Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed, were indicted by the US government with accusations of...

The British police confiscated £180 million or about $250 million worth of digital assets as part of a thorough investigation for money laundering. The operation was marked as the largest seizure ever executed in the United Kingdom. Breaking The Record According to a recent Reuters report, the Met’s Economic Crime Command made one of the largest global crypto seizures – nearly $250 million worth of various digital assets. The operation, which was part of an ongoing...

This allows users to create trustless atomic swaps between the two cryptocurrencies without having to route through a centralized exchange service. Monero’s Privacy Mechanisms Monero’s ring signature system draws anonymity from a minimum ring size. Receivers are protected via stealth addresses, and funds within the ring are indistinguishable from each other. The minimum ring size is 11: given no other information, an attacker can identify the source of a transaction with a...