Have there been any money laundering schemes that used cryptocurrency?

[Wysi]

money laundering is not easy even with crypto, especially now that there are many exchanges that require the KYC identity, I think money laundering with money or with crypto is equally difficult except for those who are experts, in my opinion the government's ban on crypto is not due to money laundering, because money laundering was often done before crypto was created.

Government's insecurity as well as possible ban on crypto is due to various factors and money laundering is a part of it as the major reason are terrorists funding, extortion wherein kidnappers demand ransom in crypto to avoid any sort of tracking. These issues were there before  existence of crypto but now it is easier and government is afraid that their national currency will take a hit if people prefer crypto.

[squatter]

Law enforcement officials busted multiple money laundering schemes this year involving Bitcoin ATMs, like this one:

Bitcoin ATMs Show Gap in EU’s Money Laundering Rules, Police Say

Spanish police announced in May that they had taken down a laundering operation that used Bitcoin ATMs. They arrested eight Spaniards and Latin Americans who allegedly used nine companies to transfer more than 9 million euros ($10 million) for drug traffickers in Colombia and other countries. The authorities say the cash machines were crucial.

There have been lots of arrests over the years associated with laundering money from darknet markets. The standard police sting goes like this: One party charges a high premium and doesn't do AML/KYC, the other party (undercover police) states that the funds are illicit proceeds. Once the transaction is completed, the first party is proven guilty of operating an unlicensed MSB, failure to implement AML procedure, and possibly conspiracy to launder money.

[TRONTON]

money laundering is not easy even with crypto, especially now that there are many exchanges that require the KYC identity, I think money laundering with money or with crypto is equally difficult except for those who are experts, in my opinion the government's ban on crypto is not due to money laundering, because money laundering was often done before crypto was created.

KYC on the exchange is not enough, they can use a mixer in large quantities without being noticed. Most of the money laundering cases that are revealed are because they were carried out in a hurry and in a large amount. case examples in 2018: https://www.coindesk.com/europol-nabs-11-in-crypto-drug-money-laundering-case

the government can track all unnatural transactions only from credit cards, or bank accounts of each suspect, and now of course they have been helped by KYC on the exchange, but I have never read that there are US police cooperating with bitfinex only because of alleged transactions money laundering goes to that exchange (for example).

[Kyraishi]

As there are many corrupt wealthy people around the world, such as politicians and crooks, and they would always try to get rid of their cash in many ways such as money laundering. Since there are many ways to get rid of cash ranging from the obvious to the rather obscure. Has anyone used cryptocurrencies in money laundering schemes?
   
I mean considering the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies around the world, I think that it would be a good idea to use it to hide your money by converting cash into cryptocurrency which can only be accessed by yourself and anyone who has knowledge of the secret passcode of your ledger.

Is it possible to do so or the authorities have countermeasures in place in order to catch people red-handed when laundering money through cryptocurrencies.

Well the way people would launder money would be fairly easy, they would just buy crypto-currency with cash or another safe payment, and now they have crypto that is worth the same as their cash, but not as dirty.

I believe there has been cases where the police where able to track transactions from a wallet, into a bunch other addressess, and then went to the exchanges with this, and responsible people got punished. Still requires some slip-ups on their part though.

[Kprawn]

The authorities and regulators are closing the loopholes for money laundering with the introduction of KYC requirements for most of the services

that are used as a off-ramp to fiat currencies. I am not saying it is not happening anymore, because there are still plenty methods to do it, but it

is not as easy as it was before they started closing the loopholes. (eg. Localbitcoins)  There are also other more anonymous coins like Monero that

are more suitable for money laundering.  

[Velkro]

This being said, i'm pretty sure 99% of the people laundering money are using the "old fashioned" ways... Like using a store front or a business. Using crypto is far to complex,

Bingo. Why learning whole crypto knowledge when you can use old fashioned ways known for 100 years? Common knowledge wins here.
Thats why you dont hear about it much, because its not happening much.

[ntsdm1]

As there are many corrupt wealthy people around the world, such as politicians and crooks, and they would always try to get rid of their cash in many ways such as money laundering. Since there are many ways to get rid of cash ranging from the obvious to the rather obscure. Has anyone used cryptocurrencies in money laundering schemes?
   
I mean considering the anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies around the world, I think that it would be a good idea to use it to hide your money by converting cash into cryptocurrency which can only be accessed by yourself and anyone who has knowledge of the secret passcode of your ledger.

Is it possible to do so or the authorities have countermeasures in place in order to catch people red-handed when laundering money through cryptocurrencies.

I have heard that there are ways to launder money, but in reality I have never observed it.Money can be laundered, of course, but I don't know how governments take countermeasures.(in general, already tired of these scammers, rich, speculators).What use are they?

[qwertyup23]

<snip...>

One of the most famous websites back in the days was Silk Road, where large exchanges and transactions were done anonymously in the website via purchasing services/products. In this way, most people have laundered money all over the world without the need of paying taxes. Not to mention, the website is full of products (e.g. drugs, drug equipments, etc.) and the FBI had seized around 28,000 BTCs at the website.

Just to add, this is one of the reasons on why some countries are hesitant to legalize bitcoin transactions due to its anonymity factor which could lead to a proliferation of drug abuses and transactions.

[DreamStage]

Of course there are alot of them

Just from dark web you will notice such launderings. Goes from selling illegal medicine to guns....
That's why we need more regulation and verification against illegal activities.

Take for instance pronzi schemes where the company uses some alt company information to get their funds transfered to their banks.
That's money laundering...

[Eclipse26]

It's possible especially with the nature of cryptocurrency like bitcoin. We don't know who, and how many uses crypto for money laundering. But anything can be possible for money. That's what greedy people do. Politicians, wealthy people, they can find ways on how to launder money without getting caught. That's why some governments don't really trust crypto because illegal and criminal activities can be done by the use of cryptocurrency.

[Baby Dragon]

It's possible especially with the nature of cryptocurrency like bitcoin. We don't know who, and how many uses crypto for money laundering. But anything can be possible for money. That's what greedy people do. Politicians, wealthy people, they can find ways on how to launder money without getting caught. That's why some governments don't really trust crypto because illegal and criminal activities can be done by the use of cryptocurrency.

Indeed, nothing is impossible when it comes to money even politicians will take advantage of crypto if they wanted to since they have some power. They will do it just to the benefits they wanted and you can't easily recognize it because government officials are very wise, they have different way of thinking and levels of perception. Some of them may think that crypto has a great potential in their country and some of them thinks that it can be beneficial to them and not in their country. We can't just change the fact that there are some politicians who are being selfish, they are thinking about themselves. Though there are still some good politicians who thinks about how crypto can be beneficial to their people as well on their country. It's kind of sad to see that there are people who keeps on using crypto in illegal activities which makes people hesitate to invest or not because they are afraid to risk, knowing that crypto's reputation is ruined by many people.

[seoincorporation]

I have seen some money laundering schemes that used cryptocurrency and casinos in the past. Let's say you start a Ponzi scheme, then you collect 50 bitcoins with that. If you go with those bitcoins and chase some big multipliers in casinos, then you can prove that you earn that money with gambling. So, is common tho see people doing weird things with their coins trying to make it looks like clean.

[DevilSlayer]

Actually, money laundering is keep increasing in our society and scammers are using cryptocurrencies to get money from others. It is the reason why the governments are creating more laws and regulation to it. There are politician who are not favor in cryptocurrencies that's why there are still countries that are not still regulating it.

[Ailmand]

Due to cryptocurrency's nature, it is most likely that people had used crypto for money laundering activities. You can easily move a huge amount of money in cryptocurrency. KYC procedure can easily be bypassed by passing a fake document or even buying ID through the dark web.

[RooseveltOah]

I’d think China would be doing this the most but not always, so obviously the need is to transfer whatever savings or funds out of China, yet Bitcoin doesn’t always appear to be the cheapest way to do so, my experience is that there are these companies who have establishment both in China and Hong Kong, since Hong Kong has no foreign exchange control, it’s still the main destination of fund transfers so far despite all that chaos (this was to change with the expedition bill but obviously not anymore since the bill has been officially withdrawn), these companies take your money in China and send money to your HK bank account with their HK establishment.

The cheapest we could find moving funds out of China for individuals with Bitcoin is around 2%, it’s another matter for corporates who have establishments offshore (it can go down to less than 1%), the alternative where going through companies who have establishments on both sides is usually cheaper (<2% close to 1%), but if you want to move a large sum of money (maybe in the millions or more), the rates can go down with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is still not the main way people transfer money out of China, most people who adopt Bitcoin is still because they want to avoid the Chinese government freezes their bank accounts, usually some kind of criminal in Chinese government’s definition.

[Linkkoin]

Actually, money laundering is keep increasing in our society and scammers are using cryptocurrencies to get money from others. It is the reason why the governments are creating more laws and regulation to it. There are politician who are not favor in cryptocurrencies that's why there are still countries that are not still regulating it.

The problem with scammers using cryptocurrencies is that unlike with card payment (or in some jusrisdictions wire transfer as well) you are not able to reverse transaction - the most notable exemption to this case is the series of events which lead to hard fork between Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.

[Yamifoud]

It can be all possible if criminals and even in government would like to play illegalities.

https://www.elliptic.co/our-thinking/bitcoin-money-laundering

These are some ways how criminals and some sort of illegalities run through crypto/bitcoin. They can easily hide transaction as they stay anonymous but the government has already traced some of these things and put into jail. But it is really a tough job for them, in fact, for a number of illegal transactions using crypto, only a few of them have been caught. We can't deny the fact also that some big personalities might be one of them and somewhat protected which no one could dare to touch them. Money have power and that its how crypto may work just like fiat.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This being said, i'm pretty sure 99% of the people laundering money are using the "old fashioned" ways... Like using a store front or a business.

Or a crypto exchange!  Lol, I'm only half kidding--it could be that crap exchanges like Yobit are fronts for something, but that's just wild speculation on my part, and I'm not accusing them or any other exchange of anything.  But I have thought it would be an excellent way to launder money before, and no doubt that's going to be an opportunity gone by the wayside once all exchanges are regulated.

I'm pretty sure there have been instances of crypto money laundering in addition to the ones mentioned in this thread, but I don't think it's anywhere near as big a deal as the government would want people to believe it is.  Like you said, most money laundering and tax evasion happens like it always has, with fiat and through otherwise legitimate businesses.  That's not likely to change, either.

Just from dark web you will notice such launderings. Goes from selling illegal medicine to guns....

That's not money laundering, necessarily.  Those are just criminal activities in general.

[Eugenar]

It could definitely not be skipped if the topic is about money laundering schemes, especially in utilizing cryptocurrency as a subject to commit illegal crimes, as technology improves, there are also wide range of fraudulent activity that criminals could choose from. In my opinion, even in pyramid investment, it could be prone, or there is a huge chance that it will turn out to be scam, cryptocurrency is too easy to use and transact because of anonymity, and people could always take advantage of that if they will utilize crypto in a negative manner.

[btc78]

thats why there are strict policy now in many countries about AML because of those cases involving money launderers .

so it is always possible that bad people are doing this just to hide their money from the eye of either government or which ever they are hiding for.

but just like any other financial aspect this is always in place ..

Due to cryptocurrency's nature, it is most likely that people had used crypto for money laundering activities. You can easily move a huge amount of money in cryptocurrency. KYC procedure can easily be bypassed by passing a fake document or even buying ID through the dark web.

and that is the sad part because bad elements can bypass everything just for them to have place in their activities.hopefully in time they will be punished for the crypto market will stay away from abused.