Source: https://www.incapsula.com
Further news on this subject which I discussed yesterday reveal that Brazilian Police have today arrested several members of an international drug syndicate.
It is reported in https://btcmanager.com that Brazil's Federal Police have "apprehended 12 people in connection with an international drug trafficking gang facilitating illegal cocaine deals worth millions of dollars using cryptocurrencies to launder proceeds from their illicit trade". The arrested include international businessmen, port terminal employees, dispatchers and truck drivers.
Source: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com
I posed the question yesterday on whether cryptocurrencies are used for illicit activities or not. As usual and expected, views were divergent. The main purpose of this article is to focus on the main findings of the report of the police raid in Brazil as it touches and helps us to answer some of the questions posed in yesterday's article.
Source: https://i2.wp.com/www.thelastamericanvagabond.com
It has turned out that Bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies are not an excellent money laundering tool after all. It is reported that law-enforcement agents and authorities have been working very hard to track criminals who have been trying to launder their ill-gotten wealth on cryptocurrencies and they have been successful to a very large degree. Also, the report states that "in a bid to entirely eradicate the abuse of cryptocurrencies, Europol is running workshops in conjunction with Cryptocurrency Exchanges to formulate ways to sanitize the cryptocurrency space and make it almost impossible for criminals to use cryptos to facilitate unlawful acts".
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org
The main picture we get from this story is that criminals and crime cartels, in their desperate and over-zealous haste to hide and launder crime proceeds are turning to cryptocurrencies since they are still fairly new in the economy. They do this in the false belief that cryptocurrencies are anonymous. Yet, as we all know, these digital currencies are only pseudo-anonymous. In fact they are less anonymous than many traditional fiat currencies like cash. Talk about sheep walking to the slaughter!! Let us just hope that more of these criminals who are tarnishing the name of cryptocurrencies are caught and brought to book.
Source: https://www.steem.center
DISCLAIMER: This is not an investment advice. Please do your own research before you invest in anything.