Cryptocurrency and criminals

We only know that they were arrested for attempting to move the stolen funds out of the wallets and clean them—reintegrating them into the legal financial system—when they were caught. Exchanges such as Bitfinex are attractive targets for malicious hackers, and several exchanges have had their funds drained, with losses likely totaling at least several hundred million dollars.

The anonymity of cryptocurrency accounts has previously made them attractive to criminals on the dark web, the portion of the internet only accessible through special software and popular among cybercriminals. For similar reasons, cryptocurrency is attractive for ransomware attacks in which hackers penetrate computer systems, encrypt data, and demand a ransom payment in order to restore access.

But cryptocurrencies are far from perfect in obscuring the identities of malicious hackers, and law enforcement agencies are getting better at tracking online criminals and their transactions. Once hackers obtain illicit cryptocurrency, perhaps from a heist or as part of a ransomware scheme, they will often want to convert it into cash, which is far less traceable.

As a result, illicit actors typically cannot convert their digital assets into cash on the most liquid exchanges today without identifying themselves and all their transactions. The same KYC regulations have resulted in major cryptocurrency exchanges blocking Russian accounts tied to illicit activity and subject to U. For these reasons, laundering large amounts of money or evading sanctions via cryptocurrency is far from straightforward. Recall again that most cryptocurrencies are, by design, a series of publicly validated ledgers that record transactions.

Transactions that are flagged can be traced—say, by a hacker moving Bitcoin from a plundered crypto exchange to their digital wallet. The ability to trace and recover cryptocurrencies gives some hope to crime victims. When the fuel-distributor Colonial Pipeline was the target of a ransomware attack last year, which disrupted fuel supplies on the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, the company paid a ransom in order to recover access to its data.

Government bureaucracies now have powerful cyber and legal capabilities, augmented by private contractors, to mitigate the risks posed by cryptocurrencies. Had Lichtenstein and Morgan better protected their accounts or simply left the United States, it is possible they would still be at-large—just like a number of criminal hackers residing in havens like Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, and who are inordinately difficult to punish.

Absent the right passports and cryptography expertise, however, Bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies are far from an optimal way to launder money at scale. Troublesome trends While current policy fears about money laundering via cryptocurrency are overblown, there are a few trends that policymakers should be concerned about. For example, the coin Monero utilizes a number of privacy-enhancing technologies, like obscuring IP addresses, to obfuscate the identities of those involved in trades and to improve the fungibility of tokens.

Monero therefore increases the likelihood that criminals can evade law enforcement and anonymously convert coins to cash. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The Ansbach Police Department in Germany provided assistance during this investigation. Attorney Christopher B. Brown of the U.

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