"The Dark Side" of Cryptocurrency: Illicit Activities with Virtual Assets
Cryptocurrency market development and the growing rates of virtual coins lead to the growing number of crypto-related crimes. Almost every day we get news about hacked exchanges, ICO-scams, money laundering through cryptocurrency, black markets using virtual coins - yes,cryptocurrency does seem to have problems with the law. Criminals use its anonymity, fast transactions and global accessibility. Today The Coin Shark will tell about the "dark side" of the cryptocurrency world and its relation to the criminal world.
In January 2018, South Korean officials claimed that all cryptocurrency-related crimes in the country worth about $600 million. Later that month hackers attacked a large Japanese cryptoexchange Coincheck and stole coins of the Singapore-based NEM project (top-14th cryptocurrency) worth about $530 million. After this incident, the Japanese regulatory authority ordered the exchange to take the necessary security measures. Huge funds of the exchange were stored in hot wallets that had access to third-party resources and there were also problems with multisignature. Coincheck published 11 addresses where stolen funds were transferred and marked them as: "coincheck_stolen_funds_do_not_accept_trades: owner_of_this_account_is_hacker". However, as Fortune wrote, this did not mean hackers would not be able to "launder" their NEM coins. They can potentially convert the coins into more anonymous currencies (like Monero) or use services that offer cryptocurrency trading without collecting personal data.
Forbes writes that the active use of cryptocurrency by criminal enterprises significantly determines their high rates. Anonymous digital currencies provide excellent opportunities to make payments, pay for illegal goods or services, launder money, etc. Law enforcement bodies need to keep up with digital innovations in order to fight crypto-related cybercrimes. In addition, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) launched a training program for specialists who deal with the investigation of such crimes last year.
Cryptocurrencies are often used on online black markets to buy illicit goods and pay for prohibited services. For example, in April 2018 a woman who was ordering drugs from the UK and paying with cryptocurrency was arrested in Australia. This country has a special analytical department to investigate darknets and black markets. Moreover, the criminal community that laundered drug sale money through cryptocurrency operations on the Finnish crypto-exchange was shut down by Europol and law enforcement agencies of Finland, Spain and the United States.
There are actually many crypto-related threats users have to face today. These are also illegal mining on personal computers of other users and ransomware epidemic (namely WannaCry and Petya) that attacked many countries worldwide affecting not only personal computers but also critical infrastructure.
Anyway, virtual money are probably related to criminal activities as much as ordinary money. Illicit use of cryptocurrency potential is a serious challenge for law enforcement agencies and regulators, and in the nearest future the battle on this new front is not likely to slacken.
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