Will The New Australian Financial Cyber Unit Focus On Bitcoin?

The Australian government has unveiled its plans to create a new cyber intelligence unit to take on terrorist financing and money laundering. To be more precise, this new unit will primarily target online payment methods, to reduce fraud. But it is not unlikely they will keep a close eye on Bitcoin as well.

AUSTRAC Has Big Plans For Online Payment Fraud

With online payment fraud and money laundering on the rise year over year, the time for talking is over. Instead, governments have to take action to crack down on these threats. Online fraud, money laundering, and terrorist financing are grave threats that need to be prevented whenever possible.

Now that Australia will focus their attention on these elements, it will be interesting to see how Bitcoin will be affected. The global fraud attacks since 2015 have increased by as much as 50%. Additionally, a  total of 112 million different cyber attacks were recorded between April and June 2016.

By working together with IDcare, one of the primary objectives will be to identify job recruitment scams. These openings are often created by internet criminals who want recruit unknowing people to act as money mules. Since there will be no trace leading back to the organization itself, they can get away with these things relatively easily.

Australian Minister for Justice Malcolm Keenan stated:

“We know that the national security threat to our nation and globally is unprecedented and modern technologies are presenting new and evolving threats – none more so than from malicious cyber activity/ We know that the use of fraudulent identities continues to be a key enabler of serious and organized crime and terrorism.”

Moreover, large-scale financial scams will be addressed as well, thanks to a close collaboration with the Australian Cybercrime Online Reporting Network. It is not unlikely this new team will look closely at larger Bitcoin transactions in an attempt to thwart money laundering or other illegal activities through cryptocurrency.

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