Bitcoin has become a playground currency for terrorists, criminals and rogue state actors

Washington Times:
Military, intelligence agencies alarmed by surge in bitcoin value in ‘dark web’ fight

The value of the shadowy digital currency known as bitcoin has jumped to record highs this month, sending shock waves through America’s defense and intelligence agencies, which fear its growth signals a surge in use by terrorists, drug kingpins, white-collar criminals and Russian cybercriminals who don’t want to be tracked by the world’s governments.

This summer, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Department of Justice and scores of European illicit finance law enforcement officials have fought back with a wave of operations against Russian cybercriminals. Late last month, they shuttered AlphaBay and Hansa — two of the biggest “dark web” contraband marketplaces rife with the illegal sale of guns, drugs and other forbidden merchandise.

In an even more startling sign of the battle raging around bitcoin, a FinCEN-led international illicit financing task force arrested a Russian “mastermind of organized crime” on a small beachside village in northern Greece less than two weeks ago.
...
There is much more.

This sounds like more of a job for the FBI financial and cyber crimes sections.  But I suspect that North Korea is also playing on this turf too.  They were allegedly behind several extortion attempts where they locked up computer systems and demanded payment in bitcoin.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains