Skip to main content

Cryptocurrencies or Fiat? – Which is more popular with criminals?

 


FIAT funds, i.e. government-issued currencies, are still the best choice for white-collar criminals.


There have always been concerns that cryptocurrencies could be used for shady purposes, but the US Treasury recently released something that somewhat allays those fears.


Despite widespread fears that cryptocurrencies could be used for criminal purposes, a newly released US Treasury Department report shows that the majority of economic crimes are still committed with fiat money.


The US Treasury released a three-year report on money laundering, proliferation financing and terrorist financing in early March. This report now shows that although such crimes have also been financed with cryptocurrencies, classic FIAT funds are still the more popular tool of choice for money launderers and terrorists.


It's fiat, not cryptocurrencies

The Treasury Department's findings include a detailed discussion of virtual currencies, noting that both their user base and market capitalization have increased significantly since the last risk assessment in 2020.


However, these reports noted that criminal flows via fiat currency and mainstream networks continue to outpace flows via cryptocurrencies.


The U.S. Treasury Department announced the following:


“The use of crypto assets to launder money remains significantly less common than the use of fiat cash and other more traditional means.”

Cryptocurrencies are still a good choice for crime

According to the National Money Laundering Risk Assessment, "virtual assets" are an ever-evolving area in money launderers' growing arsenal to conceal their finances. DeFi and “anonymity-increasing technologies” are named as possible perpetrators.


Virtual assets appear to have been used extensively in phishing attacks and ransomware scams throughout the pandemic.


Shady operators can use promises of profit from the unpredictable cryptocurrency market to trick victims into revealing personal information or infecting their devices with viruses. The attackers can then demand payment in cryptocurrency after the attack, which is both pseudo-anonymous and irreversible.


According to a recent Chainalysis Crypto Crime Report, many criminals use over-the-counter brokers to launder their cryptocurrencies. OTC brokers are individuals or companies that facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers who do not want (or cannot) transact business on a cryptocurrency exchange.


How much money is laundered?

According to a United Nations report, money laundering costs the global economy between $800 billion and $2 trillion a year. This corresponds to between 2 and 5% of gross domestic production. Today, almost 90% of money laundering goes undetected.


However, technological advances have led to the development of more effective tools. Criminals continue to use these advances to move dirty money. At the same time, government agencies and fintech firms are using the technology to identify transaction characteristics and help detect fraud.

My Top Picks
Honeygain - Passive earner that pays in BTC or PayPal
MandalaExchange -The Best no KYC crypto Exchange! 
BetFury - Play And Earn BFG for daily Bitcoin and ETH dividends!
Pipeflare - Faucet that pays in ZCash and Matic, Games pay in DAI
Womplay - Mobile dApp gaming platform that rewards in EOS and Bitcoin
Cointiply - The #1 Crypto Earning Site
Torum - Join the latest Social Network and earn TRM for Free! 
LiteCoinPay - The #1 FaucetPay earner for Litecoin 
LBRY/Odysee - YouTube Alternative that lets you earn Money by viewing videos!
FaucetPay - The #1 Microwallet Platform
FREEBTC - The #1 FaucetPay earner for Satoshi's
FaucetCrypto - An earning/faucet site that pays out instantly
FireFaucet - An earning site that pays better for some than Cointiply
DogeFaucet - Dogecoin Faucet
xFaucet - BTC, ETH, LTC, Doge, Dash, Tron, DGB, BCH, BNB, ZEC, FEY - Claim every 5 minutes
Konstantinova - BTC, ETH, LTC, Doge, Dash, Tron, DGB, BNB, ZEC, USDT, FEY, 25 Claims Daily

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

From offchain to offchain: Statechains meets Lightning

  Without a doubt, the most significant off-chain Bitcoin solution is the Lightning network. But in its wake, the statechain has emerged as an intriguing replacement. There is currently a proposal to link the two offchain networks. From an ocean, for example, you can see sunbeams glistening in the water, waves rippling, and possibly a jellyfish drifting toward the light. But you only see a small portion of it. The distance from the sea's surface to its bottom is hundreds of meters. It has dozens of different fish species swimming in it, crabs and starfish crawling on the bottom, shells clinging to rocks, and sea plants climbing up. A completely new world starts where your gaze diverges. You can picture a blockchain like Bitcoin, just like the sea. What you see on the outside is only a small portion of what is actually there; the set of UTXOs (coins) and transaction history that full nodes store are just the beginning of a much larger world. It's the plan, at least. With Bitcoin...

Phishing attack on popular crypto sites tries to empty wallets

  Several major crypto sites such as Etherscan, CoinGecko, DeFi Pulse, and others report malicious pop-ups scammers use to try to trick users into connecting their MetaMask wallets. The phishing attack came from a domain displaying the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) logo. "We are investigating the root cause of this attack to fix the threat as soon as possible," CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong tweeted. The phishing attack appears to have been triggered by a malicious ad script from Coinzilla, a crypto ad network, according to CoinGecko. Etherscan also advises its users not to confirm any transactions that may appear on the website. The attackers attempted to use the hype around the “bored monkeys” non-fungible tokens (NFT) to gain access to the cryptocurrencies of unsuspecting website visitors. Although the websites affected by the scam attempt have reacted in the last few hours and deactivated the advertising pop-up, it is still recommended not to connect your MetaMask wallet to ne...

Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs stolen through phishing on Instagram

  Bored Ape Yacht Club ( BAYC ) developers announced on Monday that hackers have hijacked the official Instagram page of the popular NFT collection and posted links to a fake airdrop. Crypto enthusiasts who connected their MetaMask wallet to the rogue website subsequently had their Ape NFTs stolen. Apparently, the attack was planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the BAYC collection. This increased the "perceived credibility" of the phishing link. About 100 NFTs are said to have been stolen in the phishing attack . According to CoinGecko data , the minimum price for a BAYC NFT is 139 Ether ( ETH ) or $400,726. So if reports are correct, over $40 million worth of NFTs were stolen in the attack. These numbers are only the lowest estimate, however, as they are based on the lowest price.  At the time of writing, it was still unclear how the hackers gained access to BAYC's official Instagram account. Social media users have pointed out the importance of two-fact...