Bitcoin Forum

Should I care about organised crime using bitcoins ?

I don't.  Shame on me, I know.

On the contrary, the fact that organised crime will spend energy in using bitcoins ensures me that governments won't be able to control the bitcoin network.

Crime should be fought for what it is.  A murder is a murder.  A theft is a theft.  But when a criminal is using a car, he's just a person who is driving a car.  Fast cars are important for thieves, for they allow them to escape from police.  Still, I don't think it would be a good idea to forbid the use of fast cars.  It's the same old debate regarding the tool and its use.  A hammer can kill someone, if it is used in this intention.  Still, we don't ban hammers.

Therefore, I don't care if organised crime is using bitcoins.  I don't care at all.  There are other ways to fight criminals than tracking their expenses.

Using Bitcoin itself doesn't create liability for a crime. Crime creates its own liabilities. Bitcoin is just the messenger (communication) of markers against labour. Or "claims of future labour". (Same thing.)

To claim that Bitcoin facilitates crime is a fallacy. The news media will certainly claim this if/when Bitcoin takes off.

Example: A criminal pays another criminal to kill someone for Bitcoins. The Bitcoins are just the communication of markers against labour not the crime itself. The payer and payee have created the liability for the crime.

Another example: An unsuspecting victim buys stolen goods from a criminal for Bitcoins. Bitcoin could be used to obfuscate the seller's location (possibly, if shipping wasn't involved) and make an investigator's job more difficult. This is not a crime. The crime is the theft itself. A thief can not give better title to the goods than the original owner has. The goods must be returned to the original owner.

We can probably agree that the previous two examples are crimes. (I'd hope, anyway.)

The following last example is why you'd need to define what you consider to be a crime: Someone uses Bitcoin to hide (called "laundering") the source of funds from a sale of prescription drugs (illegal). Again, this makes an investigator's job very tough. Is that a crime? I don't personally think it is. Various statutes claim it is. You may think it is. I say it is the right to financial privacy in action. You may argue that illegal proceeds do not deserve to be private. Where is the line drawn? Do we draw the line when every penny is spied on? (Happening now) I'd personally call "money laundering" a victimless noncrime. What about the sale of the drugs? In this case I'd say it was a breach of contract. Selling someone prescription drugs without a license or a prescription is a breach of contract.

It boils down to this: do not cause harm or loss to anyone. If this rule is violated, there is a crime. Bitcoin has nothing to do with your criminal actions. It is a means to an end -- the crime itself.

Give it time.  Even a common tool such as a kitchen knife is heavily regulated in parts of Europe already.  Smokers didn't think that smoking in public would ever become verboten just 20 years ago.

That old 'hammer and it uses' statement is so cliché. Haha! I totally didn't even see it. I must have glanced right over it. :P

Like it or not, cutting off a criminal's money supply has been proven a highly effective method of targeting and neutralizing individual criminals.  Law enforcement will always want power over money, be it USD or EUR or Pecunix or bitcoin.

How do they cut off the supply of USD/EUR to a criminal? Revoke all all of the bank notes in existence? I'm confused. You must be referring to electronic transfers.

Most criminals are not that stupid. They demand bank notes. Bitcoins are more like bank notes. Law enforcement are forced to go after the criminals directly. That's the way it should be.

Blaming the money system for crime is like blaming the ocean for a drowning.

I'm referring to both bank notes and electronic transfers.

As an example, the US has a large, on-going effort to track banks that accept large amounts of Federal Reserve Notes, interdicting those banks who accept deposits from criminals.  Several banks in Macau were shut down, for example, because they accepted lots of FRNs from North Korea.  You hear similar stories out of Mexico, where drug cartels have stupidly large amounts of FRNs.  The Feds play whack-a-mole with banks who accept large volumes of FRNs from drug kingpins.

You're incredibly naive if you think FRN flows are not actively tracked.  The Feds target digitization points -- ie. a location, usually a bank, that accepts paper USD in exchange for electronic USD credit in an account.  Additionally, many standard FRN counting/sorting machines, such as those found in casinos or banks, have the ability to scan the bill's serial number, thus providing another tracking point.  Ever heard of "marked bills?"  You don't need a special ink or marker -- law enforcement only needs to enter a bill's serial number into a Federal Reserve database somewhere.

The whole system is set up to marginalize (and de facto criminalize) large cash operations of any sort, legal or illegal.  Death by 1,000 paper cuts.


If that's a response to my post...  I was not casting any blame, nor making any judgements.  Just recounting the goal and reality of today's worldwide cash tracking operations.

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to high office.”

– Aesop

Nice metaphore.

I dont know how you stop government taxing us. :D

I do care about organised crime using bitcoin.

The fact that a technology can be abused does not make that technology immoral.  But that doesn't mean that we should ignore such abuse.  We will never be able to eliminate a degree of abuse but we can use our common sense and refuse to do business with people who seem fishy. On a strictly voluntary basis of course.  If the Bitcoin economy becomes too dominated by criminals it will hurt Bitcoin's reputation.

 

This is a perfectly acceptable point of view, apart from one thing :  I doubt the word "abuse" is appropriate.

Abuse is the improper usage for bad purpose.  When a gangster is using bitcoins, he's using it in a proper way, for its real purpose.  It's only his motivation which is "bad" or, more precisely, illegal.  When a ganster is getting in a train to move a stolen marchandise from a A point to a B point, we can't talk about any "abuse" of the train.  Otherwise we could say exactly the same thing about pretty much any single thing he uses : from his car to his telephone, not to mention his computer, his shoes, the food he eats or the air is breathing...  This would be ridiculous and would make the world "abuse" lose all its sense, turning it into a synonym for "used for criminal activities".

I agree with what you say about people refusing to do business with people who seem fishy.  But this has absolutely nothing to do with the business medium.  It could be bitcoin, fiat money, computers or telephones, Internet...  The list is long.

Crime should not be an obstacle to technical progress.

Consider a bitcoin release in the future where a block can only be generated by proof-of-murder.  difficulty increases logarithmically, so this seems reasonable. 

Wow, there's an idea worth exploring! What proof of work could we use? Murder seems fitting, what about selfless generosity? Even harder to come by ;)

You are assuming that criminals need to deposit their illegally-derived cash into a bank. This is a myth; perpetuated by the movies and the general media.

Most of the smarter/larger criminals just deal in cash directly. Why would they risk depositing any of it when they can spend it back into the general economy again for commodities (supplies, etc)? These commodities can be traded yet again as.. well.. money. Banks are not needed.


These are all small fish. They are not drug kingpins. They are the street level dealers. You never even hear about the large guys. The media sensationalizes this and makes examples of them for two reasons. One is to show that the system's laws are effective against crime. The other is to educate new criminals. Teach them that 'big guys' deposit cash into banks.


The banks and government investigators may have this capability. This still operates under the assumption that large criminals use banks.

How many merchants who accept bank notes scan the serial number? Last time I was at a store they didn't even look twice at the bills I handed them. Turn off your TV.



Yes. It does nothing when the bills are spent back into the general economy.

Look at private currencies and jurisdiction. If you are already using Bitcoin you are well on your way to understanding these two subjects. :)

No -- you are making the assumption that a cash-only existence is possible for large criminals.  If that was true, then money laundering would not exist, because it would not be necessary.

But it does.  Drug kingpins have so much cash it is quite literally a problem of size.  After paying all their flunkies, and buying illegal guns and such, they are still stuck with bales of FRNs.  That's why the Feds target any place that might accept large amounts of cash for legitimate items -- cars, houses, boats, non-illegal businesses.

It is surprisingly difficult to spend large amounts of cash without getting noticed, and that is by design.

It's a feedback loop. Bitcoin will attract criminals. It is inevitable. These criminals will be sensationalized on the news which will scare away legitimate business and attract more criminals. We have to be prepared for this. :)

A declaration of saying that you're going to avoid taxes is a bad idea.

I'm not sure I wrote that.  I don't remember.  Maybe something went wrong with your computer when you quoted me.  Please check.

Anyway, I can not be suited for something I say I *might do in the future*.  One can not be blame for supposed future actions.

That's exactly what I'm saying. It isn't only possible; they do it! Money laundering directly through a bank is unnecessary and stupid. The criminals that end up on the news are the stupid ones who thought it was necessary.


You are still thinking too small. Large criminals simply start their own factories to manufacture arms, cars, and boats. They launder through businesses, not banks! Once they are large enough, they lobby (aka "bribe") politicians to protect their operations through legislation/turning a blind eye to it all. I can provide many examples upon request.

I've seen many city blocks of construction in Moscow that was all built with drug proceeds. The cash was paid directly to the construction workers. (Where is the bank? I don't see one?) This construction wasn't just allowed, but it was given the full cooperation of government. The buildings were either rented (clean legal income from renters), or sold (clean income again).

The only reason this job was figured out was that a government official wasn't paid enough and said something about it. (A rare occurrence.) Think about all of the times it happens unnoticed. By the time the government went after these criminals they had disappeared and were busy working on their next business in another country.

I should say at this time that I do not condone criminal activity. Crime is a social problem that must be understood in order to stop/prevent it.

The government is an organised gang. "Outlaw gangs"  at least they have a code of honour. :)

So does the government.  It's the set of laws which they follow.

They don't always follow them, they just expect all of us to follow them.

Yeah but there is no repurcussions for breaking them. If you break the outlaw gangs laws they break your legs.

More precisely, if a government have a law voted that is illegal or unconstitutionnal, at some point it *might* (it's not even sure) receive a disapproval from a higher authority (constitutionnal consil, UNO, human right association, whatever...).  But they get away with it with no real sanction, they can just apologize and vote a almost identical law.

The whole thing is a joke.

This is also true of the outlaw gangs.  One is not better than the other, they are better and worse in different ways, partly due to differing codes of honor, partly due to matters of scale. 

i agree. if we continue to just blindly accept that organized crimes use bitcoin for their finances, it may affect the normal citizens who uses bitcoin on the long run. bitcoin may enter controversies which may lead to something permanent and can affect the overall process and flow of bitcoin due to the pressure of maybe the government or media (which is a lot considering we live in a digital age and that bitcoin is basically a digital wallet.) we have to figure out and do something about it.

What a dumbass, those code of honor from these "Outlaw" gangs only apply if your life isn't in danger, code of honor is not something physical so it can easily be broken. I don't worry too much about crime syndicate using cryptocurrencies, it's the law enforcement agencies task to take them down not mine.

fiat is being used by criminals and it's worse because there is no trial to it, unlike bitcoin where they can be traced. you can ask chainalysis for it. 
BTC will not be dominated by people who will use it for a crime, the ones who uses BTC up to today are speculators, that's why they gamblers risking whichever the market goes.


i won't worry about that either. there are law enforcers, they should catch up with the technology.

therefore the role of the government is needed here, the government can actually investigate this crime, but the legislation in force is not yet strong, so it seems to stop. Besides that, indeed with the existence of organized crime that uses bitcoin, it has a bad impact on normal residents who also use it. therefore hopefully the government will immediately consider it

That's what I said and catching up with technology is a difficult thing to do for law enforcement because they have a limited budget and every year it gets little because they get budget cuts. Another problem is that they have a really archaic approach that they think works for cyber crimes but it doesn't so I think more than catching up with technology, they have to change everything.

Same way it's foolish/lawless to ban bananna because criminals are perverting its usage,  misusing or abusing it.
The wise goes after the criminals and let the good banana be... or even put things in place to prevent the misuse or abuse of bananna.

It's OK to ban bad/unsafe bananna though

The end doesn't justify the means, so they say. So to ban bitcoin to ward of criminals isn't really going to lower the crime rate any soon. What would lower it though is proper governance, and a much more interactive police force. People should stop putting the blame to something they don't know nothing about. Just like your analogy, it's not logical to ban bitcoin the same way it is not logical to ban fast cars because thieves love to use them for their crimes.

I'm sorry, but how do criminals misuse or abuse bananas?

Why would they do that though? They won't get anything from it but the ire of the community which is steadily increasing by the year. Also, they won't be able to reduce crimes with that and people will find a way to use bitcoin even though it becomes illegal.

Yes bitcoin is not only the area that crimes are committed, there are other ways that even organised crimes have been committed and the state has not been able to tackle it properly. Many people have killed people but are still working the streets because of bad governance and corruption which is mean problem and not bitcoin. Of course before bitcoin is used for any illicit transaction, it would have been fiat that is converted into bitcoin for the crime purpose, so the government should check the fiat being converted into bitcoin.

you should care if you are a bitcoiner because crimes using bitcoins affects the reputation of bitcoin . do you like it when someone says bitcoins is a scam and a tool use by criminals  ?
i heard it everywhere and it breaks my heart .
organized crime that is done by two or more people is is more serious than unorganized crime done by a single person because they can dealt a lot of damage  .

if the crime happens in btc . tracking their btc transaction can help solved the crime than using methods that are not connected to btc

A thread from 2010, wow that's really old. I don't think much has changed in the last 12 years. Criminals have been using crypto currencies to scam people and save their money. But there is no real difference to fiat money. If there were no cryptos these people would still be criminals and just use normal fiat money. The only thing that really changed is that more people use cryptos, so the majority today are definitely not criminals.

We should not be bothered about this because like the example you came there are quite a number of things which are harmful to even human beings are being sold in society today because of one or two ways helpful and we can't stop investing because of some category of people who fails to see the positive thing to do with bitcoin.

Bitcoin is like money, it is a tool, but people often use it as an excuse to justify their false beliefs to be right. Its role should look right as a tool in life. But just a little ahead of everyone. I always believe in the bright future of bitcoin

I have to disagree with you. I have been around since 2012, and I would say that the incidents of criminal activities making use of Bitcoin has definitely gone down during this period. If you remember, 2013-17 period was the golden age of dark markets. There were all sort of illegal services available on the dark web, including narcotics, murder for hire and even illegal weapons. But that was many years ago. Look around. You will notice a sharp decline in such activities in the dark web, during the last few years. Even the crypto-based Ponzi schemes are now becoming rare. You will not find projects similar to PlusToken and OneCoin nowadays.

I hope you fully understand that crime can be connected with any currency, right? Do you think that criminals in the streets, selling drugs or weaponry, operate with Bitcoin? Bitcoin was notorious a few years ago, due to the Darknet markets, such as Silk Road, Agora, Alpha bay and many more, selling all kind of illegal items, from illegal substances to counterfeit notes.

Cryptocurrency is still used in the Darknet due to their nature of being anonymous, it's definitely an alarming issue, but I don't think there's much you can do, crime is everywhere.

right, crime is everywhere, and as ordinary people we cannot prevent it, but with this we can provide input to the government so that they follow up. Therefore, we can also understand that on the one hand, the anonymous nature provides an opening for criminals to launch their business

I totaly agree with you, for a long time many people and the media have linked bitcoin with crime which hindered it progress for quite a while, crime is crime whatever you do to combat it poeple just keep on coming up with new ways to do it and if governments want to combat it they should find new ways to do it, and the same way that bitcoin is anonymous to the criminals and drug dealers it is anonymous to the governmment so maybe they can use it to their advantage to catch them.

Bitcoin is not anonymous. Each and every transaction is recorded in the Blockchain and the authorities can easily trace the users by checking the transactions they made. If you really want to remain anonymous while using cryptocurrency, then you need to opt for a coin that is specifically designed for that purpose, such as Monero, Zcash , Veil or Deep Onion. Mixing bitcoin may give some anonymity, but once again there is no guarantee that the authorities may seize the domain and extract all the mixing information.

Bitcoin is a very popular currency in crypto and some of it is not anonymous. Although not controlled by the government it is used for investment in many countries around the world governments cannot use them to their advantage even if they want to commit crimes for their own benefit bitcoin investors are different from most of us. Driven by a desire for innovation rather than a human ideal they are particularly destitute when it comes to gambling they just can't help themselves.

The only problem with this is that it will damage the image of bitcoin as a tool for committing crimes and being implicated for something illegal just because you use bitcoin which is pretty serious given that police can kill innocent people if they find it amusing but besides that, I don't think that we will have to worry about it too much.

In what way that it has been used to justify false belief? about trading ? or about usage/ or about wrong usage in terms of Illegal attempt?
Bitcoin is Our future actually and the generation next to us and that is reality.
This is not just for today , but or tomorrow of everyone around the globe, maybe they have not found it yeah but trust me in time? they will.

What kind of criminal is using a banana? I guess it's more the perverted side of people but not necessarily criminals so you are basically wrong with you analogy to compare banana with bitcoin. Regarding this dilemma of organized crimes using bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as a medium to evade taxes, launder money or fund their illegal activities, we can't do much about them without compromising something big in bitcoin, unless we are prepared to do that, we will be on a stalemate with this people.

Crimes involving the use of bitcoin has been going on for years and it has been the medium on how those who commit felonies keep their anonymosity. We can't blame for being like that neither consider ourselves criminals for owning such. The crime you commit defines what rules against the law you have done and those things are the ones that can get you in jail. There's nothing wrong for not caring about those kind of criminal acts because there are too many already and mostly the powerful people in the world are behind those.

You explain it well, but your examples are old in regards to the message they are supposed to convey. It is not that politicians don't know that a chair used to bang someones head into pieces shouldn't be labeled a deadly weapon and therefore become forbidden.
I think it is more a question that's all about power relations and social hierarchies. Out of a sudden everybody has the same possibilities. Everybody the same. That wasn't the case before because hiding money was difficult, expensive, required smart lawyers and oversea connections. Or it required many laundering, but in a smart way. That is also not that easy for the average person. Now this has changed and I believe it is all about that. If you look at those claiming Bitcoin is difficult, you probably won't find that many who are not hiding crimes or cash in some secret bank account in the Bahamas or Cyprus.

The fact people misuse an opportunity doesn't necessarily mean such is a bad innovation. Organised crime using Bitcoin isn't different from organised crime using fiat just that the ease to which bitcoin can be transferred without detailed information of who the recipient is. Just like we can't still stop the use of the internet because it's where the general concept of this digital compactibility emanated from. Learning to stay on alert and being security consious both online and offline would rather be the approach to tackling this.

Tracking expenses has been proven an effective method since Al Capone. Remember that this ganster was caught on regards of not paying taxes and nothing else. And that has also been the case with many criminals that eventually need to move the money around. It is also quite a good punishment because they are stripped of the money they have earned during many years, so it has a demoralising effect on the criminals.
I am very much in favour of using the money to track the miss use and there is also the terrorisms which has changed the way we all think about what level of freedom can we enjoy.

Talking about IRS that can possibly link your fresh Bitcoin address to your wallet without having to tell you how. The authorities protected Al Capone but the corrupt police can't protect him from IRS. :D

There is a lot of organized crime even before Bitcoin. Banks are an organized crime group just as how Andreas Antonopolous describe and FED as an organized ponzi. Just take a look at Amazon that can now sell Cannabis.  https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/yes-amazon-will-sell-weed-stop-worrying-and-start-acting

Truly staying at alert is the solution to the very many situation being faced in the society. Crime is as old as the world and so it can't be stopped and bitcoin won't be blamed or made to look as the course or growth of crime. The government should also stopped fiat use to pay assassins to eliminate opponent and in office. Fiat is used for many of the crimes before the innovation of bitcoin.

I think bitcoin has a large platform where you can not  suppose to say anyone your purpose. This is peer to peer connection within a moment anyone can transfer a large amount of money within a moment.No Authorities  are here to make  any objection,you are totally free to all your own.Here is the lots of positive Energy but some group of people making this useful method turned into illegal purpose. They use the wrong way this is really a bad thing.They escape large amount of money without any Authorities or any problem.They can safely hide their Criminal activities with the method of crypto currency.I thing Everything In the World can use good purpose or bad purpose but the thing is up to you.

Honestly if they are criminals then they already know all the ways they can get money through black markets or even through other third party where people would do anything for a couple of extra dollars. You can't cut off anyone's money supply since 24*7 surveillance is going to make holes in the pocket of government officials.

Bitcoins on the other hand can be tracked and government just want to blame something or someone for all the increasing cases.

I do not think that's true, I do think that other currencies like fiat are the ones which are impossible to track but Bitcoins on the other hand is completely trackable thus it's a way safer option for everyone as compared to fiat and money.

Yeah, I don’t think there is anything to be ashamed about as you have said because a crime that is committed with bitcoin still has nothing to do with bitcoin. When people commits a crime they should be held accountable for the crime that they have committed, and we shouldn’t blame it on bitcoin and neglect the evil and stupid people who have committed the crime.

It’s really annoying for me whenever I see people saying that bitcoin is bad, just because they saw it being used for a bad purpose, I am not happy about it. Sometimes we leave to pursue those who commits the crime and only focus on putting the blame on bitcoin and labeling it as bad. It’s high time that those who commits such crimes are traced, caught and punished.

Totally agree.
Criminals may use everything that ordinary people use, but it doesn't mean that those things should be banned. Apart from cryptocurrency, organised crime also uses nylon stockings to hide the criminals' faces, should they also be banned? There shouldn't be any remorse about using the things that bad guys use. Like, you shouldn't have moustache because Hitler had. That is absolutely rediculous.
By the way, mob also uses cash which is also hard to control. Surely, bad guys have more opportunities for financing but it doesn't mean that bitcoins are used only by criminals. As usual, there are lots of excesses anout new technologies. The main thing is that people are afraid of something new. It goes without saying that new technologies bring new challenges along with new perks. So why not find the solutions to those challenges instead of stupidly banning the technology?

every development, of course there will be loopholes that are used to do bad things, I think that is something that naturally happens, I mean why don't we look for solutions to cover these gaps, like bitcoin which is the latest innovation. I think looking for the person who did the bad thing and then punishing him is something fair