Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Bestmixer Seized by Police for Washing $200 Million in Tainted Cryptocurrency Clean

posted by janrinok on Monday May 27 2019, @04:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the crime-appears-to-pay dept.

martyb writes:

Bestmixer Seized by Police for Washing $200 Million in Tainted Cryptocurrency Clean:

Bestmixer.io has been seized and shut down by European police for reportedly laundering over $200 million in cryptocurrency.

On Wednesday, Europol, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), and Luxembourg authorities said six servers used to facilitate the service were seized in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Bestmixer launched in May 2018. Only a month later, police began investigating the mixing service and found that over the course of one year, the "world's leading cryptocurrency mixing service" had managed to launder at least $200 million in cryptocurrency on behalf of customers.

[...] The service was able to mix Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Litecoin (LTC). By "mixing" these tainted coins with others, it is possible to clean up funds and eradicate ties to criminal activities written in the blockchain ledger in a process also known as "washing."

[...] A commission is then taken from the original sum before the funds are diverted to another output address, free of ledger entries which may criminalize the owners.

McAfee assisted in the investigation and has published a blog post about it.

Also at: Security Week

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Bestmixer Seized by Police for Washing $200 Million in Tainted Cryptocurrency Clean | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 27 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @02:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @02:37PM (#848188)

    It depends on what you know, and what you are thinking when you accept the exchange. In other words, money laundering presumes to know what is going on in your head - it is basically a thought crime.

    Not quite. Playing dumb (aka willful ignorance) does not prevent you from being a criminal participant in money laundering. If your friend pops up with a lot of money out of the blue, and any reasonable person (and even some posters here on SN) would know that the money is of a questionable source, then you lose plausible deniability.

    A thought crime is when you think about doing something illegal but don't actually do it. Your take on money laundering is doing something illegal but it's only a crime because you thought or knew it was illegal when you did it. Your position is basically "never learn any of the laws and you can't be responsible for breaking them."

    A bank is required to report any transaction of $10k or more. Avoiding those reporting requirements by depositing just under $10k is a crime. People have been prosecuted for this "crime" even when they truly happened to have just under $10 to deposit. So it's again an almost unprovable thought crime: a perfectly legal act (making a deposit) suddenly becomes criminal based on what you are thinking.

    Not quite. If your intent is to purposely deposit just under $10k to avoid scrutiny then you are willfully attempting to skirt the law. Doing it once won't get you much (if any) attention. But doing it repeatedly establishes your knowledge and intent to hide the transactions. Your actions (purposely trying to avoid reporting requirements) are illegal, which brings into question the source of the money you are trying to hide.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +4  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Informative=1, Total=4
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Total Score:   4