Twelve Russian army officers were charged with money laundering for trying to use Bitcoin to hide their role in influencing the 2016 US presidential election.
It all dates back to July 2016, when the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced that it had been hacked by two Russian computer piracy groups, called "Fancy Bear" and "Cozy Bear." The two groups managed to infiltrate the DNC system and share thousands of emails with "Gucifer 2.0", a Romanian hacker. A few days later, the emails were published on WikiLeaks.
In an effort led by special adviser Robert Mueller, the 12 Russian army officers have been indicted by a grand jury. Apparently, the group tried to compromise the elections, going as far as attacking state election boards, election program providers and state secretaries. Curiously, it is not mentioned if the group could influence the polls.
Many of the men have been identified as members of the GRU, Russia's largest foreign intelligence agency. In addition, it is believed that they used a tool that has been linked to other piracy attacks backed by GRU. According to reports, the 12 officers used spear phishing tactics (e-mail scam to steal data) with the help of a tool called "X-Agent".
X-Agent, also known as "Sofacy", is a tool designed to hack iOS and Android smartphones. Once downloaded, the application has permission to voluntarily activate the microphone of a device and record audio, as well as collect information about messages, contacts, photos, installed applications, Internet status, geographic location data and the list of running processes.
At some point, the hackers decided to buy Bitcoin in an attempt to remain anonymous. Using the digital currency, the group bought several infrastructures, such as servers, with the hope that these actions would not be related to them. However, now that they have been discovered, men face an additional charge for money laundering.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said at the press conference:
As long as we are united in our commitment to the values enshrined in our Constitution, they will not succeed. The partisan war driven by modern technology does not fully reflect the grace, dignity and unity of the American people. "
This particular case shows that cryptocurrencies do not ensure a free pass in the wrong actions, particularly when the asset in question is not truly anonymous.