From cryptocurrency to video games, criminals are turning to some surprising digital technologies to help launder money.
The heist, deal or operation has worked, bringing in a huge amount of money. But now where do you put it?
The second step is called "layering". This is all about moving the money around, to obscure the source from which it originated. Take UK sisters Abia and Shazia Din. They operated a beauty business in Manchester, along with a multi-million-dollar drug-smuggling empire.They would then courier this cash to a Bitcoin broker — "a chap who had a lot of Bitcoin and didn't ask too many questions" as White explains — and get cryptocurrency in return.and Shazia got 15 years. In total, 18 people connected with them were sentenced to almost 140 years in total behind bars.
So to camouflage the trail of crypto, there are nifty — but not faultless — digital services called "mixers".For a fee and with a few clicks of a mouse, launderers can put their cryptocurrency into one of these digital mixers, which will spit it out clean. Axie Infinity is an online game where users can raise and battle salamander-like digital pets called axies.But inside the game, players can buy and sell all sorts of things, like potions for their axies and the axies themselves.
The US put Tornado Cash under sanctions, thanks to the North Korea link, and people connected to the mixer were later arrested.White says they argued that services like Tornado Cash were essential privacy tools, and without them, "we have no secrecy, we're under surveillance".Dirty money can also be cleaned inside the actual world of video games.
Laundering Digital Placement Layering Integration Criminals Prison Abia And Shazia Din Bitcoin Cryptocurrency Blockchain Mixers Tumblers Helix Axie Infinity Tornado Cash Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Loot Box Geoff White The Money
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