Tweet Over 35 people were arrested in a US-wide sweep by the US DOJ, DEA, US Secret Service, ICE, HSI and the FBI agents for selling illegal drugs over the darknet and laundering the proceeds of crime using, inter alia, Bitcoin. The operation involved agents posing as digital currency exchanges to obtain personal information of […]
Tweet 25-year-old Matthew Yensan, from North Carolina, was sentenced to 78 months incarceration today for producing Xanax and Alprazolam, selling them on the darknet and laundering the proceeds of crime using, inter alia, Bitcoin and Litecoin. According to the indictment, Yensan had a Glock 27 .40, a Smith & Wesson Revolver .357, a Colt King […]
Tweet Executive Order President Trump issued an Executive Order imposing economic sanction on the initial coin offering (“ICO“) by the Government of Venezuela, called the Petro coin (the “Petro ICO“). The Executive Order makes it illegal to engage in transactions, dealings or financings in connection with the Petro ICO, which would include buying, selling, trading, […]
Tweet This guide to Bitcoin, Blockchain, distributed ledger tech, and digital currencies is taken from a collection of presentations, comments, speeches we’ve made at conferences or written articles from 2012 to 2015. Bitcoin Consumer payments and ways of transferring value in Canada and globally have shifted over the last several decades from paper-based media, such […]
Tweet US President Trump signed new sanctions legislation into law on August 3, 2017, against Iran, Russia and North Korea, and at the same time, adopted a new national strategy to combat terrorist financing and money laundering. The legislation, “HR3364 – Countering America’s Adversaries Though Sanctions Act” is more than about sanctions. In large part, […]
Tweet According to tracing that was revealed this week at the Black Hat USA Conference, BTC-e was the Bitcoin exchange that serviced over 95% of all the ransomware extortion payments globally since 2014. Researchers wrote scripts that extracted payments to Bitcoin wallet addresses to determine what exchanges was used for extortion payments. The research also showed […]
Tweet For the first time ever, the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (“FINCEN“), has asserted jurisdiction over a foreign digital currency exchange, BTC-E, for the purposes of fines, and assessed civil penalties for anti-money laundering law failures under the Bank Secrecy Act in the amount of $110,003,314. In July of this year, BTC-E and its […]
Tweet Europol released its 2016 Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment Report on cybercrime today and the results are more disturbing than last year’s report. The Report can be accessed here. Generally, the Report findings were that the volume and scope of cybercrime has reached very high levels and now surpasses regular non-online crimes. The Report […]
Tweet In a report released yesterday on serious organized crime called “Exploring Tomorrow’s Organized Crime” (the “Report“), Europol found that organized crime is now becoming a virtual activity over the Internet and as a result, transnational criminal organizations (“TCO“) are migrating towards virtual payment methods to conduct commercial affairs, including digital payments. According to Europol, […]
Tweet Are Bitcoin Exchanges MSBs? The Québec Government’s Authorité des Marchés Financiers (the “AMF“) today issued a News Release announcing that businesses that operate digital currency ATMs and “platforms for trading virtual currencies” must be licensed by the AMF as money services businesses (“MSB“) pursuant to the provincial Money Services Business Act (the “Act“). It also issued […]