While bitcoin is actively being used for all sorts of payments, there are still people who use the digital currency to carry out illegal activities. In fact, recent reports indicate that ten men suspected of using bitcoin to launder over $22 million were just arrested by Dutch police.
According to sources, it seems like the criminal money came from online drug deals, carried out on the Deep Web, the unindexed part of the internet, reachable only via specific software.
The drug dealers have been under investigation for a while now, and during the raids, prosecutors seized various items including cash, luxury cars and bank accounts. The bitcoin launderers were caught because of their uncalculated strategy, as they would deposit large sums of money to their bank accounts, only to quickly withdraw it from ATMs. During the raid, police also seized a total of 15 kilograms of ecstasy which would have later been sold.
The investigation was carried out in cooperation with officials from Australia, Morocco, the United States and Lithuania, and the raids saw the participation of over 250 law enforcement officers.
The current state of bitcoin criminality is still vague, as there isn’t much research being carried out in this field. However, while bitcoin is used for various illegal activities, including ransom demands and drug trades, most of the daily transactions are well-intended.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what do you think about these raids? It seems like law enforcement is getting more implicated in haunting down individuals who use the digital currency for illegal activities.
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