Money laundering via BTC

[bitbunnny]

Bitcoin is more and more popular for money laundering. It's still rather anonimous and for authorities it is not so easy to trace the money or seize the wallet, sometimes even because of lack of regulation.
So people who gain the money through illegal activities often convert it to Bitcoin. Of course there is risk because of price volatility but still is better then to lose everything.

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[Invincible]

And this is possitive trait of bitcoin imo people should have some privacy

[shield132]

Bitcoin is really for money laundering. Imagine: It's anonymouse, you control your own wallet offline without banks and etc, no one can know your funds and no one can track you, for additional securities you can use bitcoin mixers and these whole things makes bitcoin ideal for money laundering. That's why some famouse websites don't use this as a payment system and that's why goverment don't likes bitcoin, simply it's nature of bitcoin.

[hajimasan]

Money laundering is not the concept of cryptocurrency because in cryptocurrency we deal with people whom we don't know personally so we deal with strangers and become victim if scam. What if we do the same with real money. Will we trade with unknown? Deal with known person and be safe.

[iTradeChips]

yes bitcoin can be used to launder money if needed. but it is still traceable. if coins like monero become really big, this will be the coin of choice of those who want to launder

[KennyR]

Money laundering is highly possible, but the problem is with transaction. When we need to change the black money to bitcoin, the person who provides bitcoin gets fiat. So if we try through banks surely taxation occurs for the black money. Profitable only if the exchange happens person to person on direct exchanging.

[care2yak]

Yes, money can be laundered via btc.

You keep it in a wallet like say blockchain.info, then you're anonymous.

Use it in a p2p transaction, and governments won't be able to spot you or stop you.

But if you use an exchange where you convert to fiat (which usually will require identification and all that jazz), then there's a possibility that you'll be questioned for your funds.

[kiklo]

BTC & Gift Cards are better at anon, than Monero.
At least according to the current criminal preferences.   

http://www.fraud-magazine.com/article.aspx?id=4294967696

The problem is that gift cards might be a little too easy to use. Consider the potentially sinister side.
According to Jeffery Ross, a senior adviser with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crime, terrorists and money launderers might find it easier to escape detection by using gift and other prepaid cards.

Ross says that criminals are increasingly using the cards, some of which are bought with "digital currency" via the Internet, to avoid leaving financial fingerprints.
The Department of the Treasury is considering new regulations to help monitor the $163 billion (U.S.) stored-value industry, which includes gift, long-distance, transit, payroll, and money cards redeemable at automated teller machines.
While casinos and banks are among the most established means for laundering, money launderers are increasingly turning to such methods as online payment services and gift cards to move their illicit funds because they provide anonymity.

 

[btcdiggingmaster]

Is it possible to do money laundering via bitcoin? I mean as no one knows if you have bitcoin and how much bitcoin do you actually own, it could be used to convert black money to white right? Or at least store your black money without much hassle. But there is the risk of its value but I think for people who have lots of black money and don't want to be caught, this risk might be worth taking for them isn't it?
What are your thoughts?

There are chances to convert from white to black money but it not possible bitcoin is not restricted to specific country, to exchange your black money into it will take lot of time because bitcoin are being hold by many members from different parts of the world, even we don't know who are those and where the money is.One more thing bitcoin completely digital currency either you need to exchange you black money either in form of through banks and face to face exchange, even exchanging you will face some problems with your black money.

[countryfree]

I guess most people do not understand what money laundering is. Mixing services and anonymous services are totally useless. Money laundering is going from having cash in hands to having money at a bank. Sure, that can be done with BTC, but that's not cheap.

[xuan87]

Yes we can do money laundering via bitcoin, this is one of the reason the government banned bitcoin in some country, the anonymous feature that bitcoin has is really suitable to hide your wealth, combining your bitcoin with mixing service it will be a prefect tool to do money laundering

[Arcteryx]

Wouldn't think that it could easily be done since you need to transfer bitcoin in fiat which is not an easy task.
Most if not all services ask for i.d after you register an account with them and then request to do a transfer to a card of credit so you can use it to withdraw cash or fiat by an atm machine.
There are not alot of places that allow you to do this but there are a few still left and if you can they do have limits in place so you can not do what you are asking about. I think laundering money is considered if it is more than $1000 and most services allow you to do under that amount without having to give them i.d.
I could be wrong because there are alot of companies popping up every week that allow people to do this now.

[uneng]

Wouldn't think that it could easily be done since you need to transfer bitcoin in fiat which is not an easy task.
Most if not all services ask for i.d after you register an account with them and then request to do a transfer to a card of credit so you can use it to withdraw cash or fiat by an atm machine.
There are not alot of places that allow you to do this but there are a few still left and if you can they do have limits in place so you can not do what you are asking about. I think laundering money is considered if it is more than $1000 and most services allow you to do under that amount without having to give them i.d.
I could be wrong because there are alot of companies popping up every week that allow people to do this now.

It's very easy to do. There is always someone accepting to do such shady thing for some bucks. There are illegal people laudering fiat at banks, at church, at donation institutions, so why not at bitcoin exchanges?
I'm sure there are people doing this, and it will exist with or without bitcoins, what happens is that media uses it only against bitcoins, the media is very dishonesty and hypocritical.

[Ziskinberg]

Wouldn't think that it could easily be done since you need to transfer bitcoin in fiat which is not an easy task.
Most if not all services ask for i.d after you register an account with them and then request to do a transfer to a card of credit so you can use it to withdraw cash or fiat by an atm machine.
There are not alot of places that allow you to do this but there are a few still left and if you can they do have limits in place so you can not do what you are asking about. I think laundering money is considered if it is more than $1000 and most services allow you to do under that amount without having to give them i.d.
I could be wrong because there are alot of companies popping up every week that allow people to do this now.

Money laundering is an illegal activities, it's an act of making dirty money to be clean that's why you launder it. IMO, there's no specific amount to be considered as money laundering as it's based on the law of your certain area, if I am not wrong what you are trying to imply on your statement is that some entity which are covered by the law of AMLA (Anti Money Laundering Act) are required to report transactions over $1,000 as covered transaction.

In addition, they are also directed to report suspicious transactions based on the memorandum received from AMLC.

[densuj]

Is it possible to do money laundering via bitcoin? I mean as no one knows if you have bitcoin and how much bitcoin do you actually own, it could be used to convert black money to white right? Or at least store your black money without much hassle. But there is the risk of its value but I think for people who have lots of black money and don't want to be caught, this risk might be worth taking for them isn't it?
What are your thoughts?

Actually there are no money laundering in bitcoins, there is bitcoins mixing only, it is different between mixing coin and money laundering,  https://[banned mixer] is one of many bitcoins mixing services and
The aim of mixing bitcoin is not for money laundering but it is for stay anonymous and there are no
people whom track their bitcoin.

[pinkflower]

Well, it is, it can be used as money laundering tool. Anything can be used as it is, be it a real estate or anything that has value, as long as you could hide your money, then you could do it. You could stock your money as bitcoin to hide it or you can make it as passage so it is not easy to trace where it goes out. 

BTC makes it very much easier if you know what you are doing and if you have the right connections. Maybe its where it could get some of its value in the real world. It could be used by criminals and terrorists to move money over the internet but it can also be used by honest people in dictatorial regimes. As long as the price goes up I'm all for it.

[Botnake]

Is it possible to do money laundering via bitcoin? I mean as no one knows if you have bitcoin and how much bitcoin do you actually own, it could be used to convert black money to white right? Or at least store your black money without much hassle. But there is the risk of its value but I think for people who have lots of black money and don't want to be caught, this risk might be worth taking for them isn't it?
What are your thoughts?

Actually there are no money laundering in bitcoins, there is bitcoins mixing only, it is different between mixing coin and money laundering,  https://[banned mixer] is one of many bitcoins mixing services and
The aim of mixing bitcoin is not for money laundering but it is for stay anonymous and there are no
people whom track their bitcoin.

That certain site could help you if you want to launder your money, people can use such service to be anonymous but there are people whose real intention to be anonymous as they want to hide their illegal activities. Bitcoin is already anonymous, so why would you still have to use the mixing service, you want to hide something of course.

Since mixing service is not covered my the AMLC then they cannot enforce the company to divulge the information of their clients to them. We can be safe here as it's a good place to be anonymous and hide some shitty activities if we are doing it.

[Kakmakr]

Let's put this whole thing into the bigger picture for a moment, because I think we are blowing this issue up for no reason. The estimated amount of money laundered globally in one year is 2 - 5% of global GDP, or $800 billion - $2 trillion in current US dollars.

The market cap for Bitcoin with the mined coins are roughly 16 000 000 coins, and we know very little of these coins are in circulation, so this brings us to +/- 10 000 000 {wild guess, but still enough to make a point}

Let's say, we have a Bitcoin price of $1000/BTC and all 10 000 000 coins were available, and 100% of these coins were used to launder money, then they would only have $10 000 000 000 {$10 billion } to launder any money. Where will the other $790 billion come from in bitcoins to launder the money globally?

The point that I am trying to make is, is this : Bitcoin's contribution to money laundering, if 100% of available coins are used, would only make up roughly 1.2% of all money laundering being done with other methods. So is this REALLY a issue?

This is being blown out of proportion by the media and the fiat shills, to make Bitcoin look bad, but money laundering with bitcoin is a non-issue, if you look at the percentage that could be used to launder money, if ALL coins were to be used to launder money.

Source : https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/money-laundering/globalization.html

[shamzblueworld]

Bitcoin is pseudo-anonymous, so it's not ideal to hide "black" money in a technology that can be traced back to the person hiding that money. There are other Alt coins with full anonymity more suited for that purpose. Even if you use mixer services with Bitcoin, the authorities can still subpoena these services to release the data, and then you will have to give a explanation for that money. ^hmmmm^

Really? I thought no body can backtrace bitcoin owner, don't it make it quite vulnerable then? I mean if someone can find out that you own like 2-3 or more BTC, they can rob you just like they rob cash, only difference would be that they would have to beat out your wallet passwords and stuff.
I thought its security lies in the fact that it is untraceable and no one can know who owns and how much.

[pinoycash]

yes bitcoin can be used to launder money if needed. but it is still traceable. if coins like monero become really big, this will be the coin of choice of those who want to launder

how can you trace it if you are using a anonymous wallet like blockchain or even on your own wallet. no one will know who is the owner not unless you used the same address stake on the meta sections