Bitcoin is not a safe haven for criminals

[Botnake]

It doesn't even make any sense for them to even pursue that narrative about Bitcoin in the first place. How many scams and money laundering and many other financial vises have been done with Fiat currency, why was there no rally of banning Fiat currency? Bitcoin was just been hated upon without any meaningful reason but this will fade with more positive news coming forth about the Bitcoin ecosystem that it is not as bad as what they believe.

There are so many criminal activities happened to fiats and people gets used to this that's why they do not question it anymore but btc is a new thing to them and maybe they don't also like the approach of btc that's why they throw any negative statements that they can think of and maybe those people compare btc to paypal because we know that paypal have a reversible function where you can easily recover your money if you think you send it from a scammer but btc cannot do it although there is still another way to track cyber criminals and this news is a proof that it is possible in btc. However, I don't think haters will stop after this but they will find another angle to continue their hate in btc.

  As long as bitcoin is never accepted by the government, the people will always throw negative criticisms that will ruin the good reputation of bitcoin. But this news is something an eye opener to those who go against bitcoin because if this incident happened in fiat, then it will be very hard to recover the amount, but since its all in bitcoin, its transparency makes it easier to be traced by the FBI. There are a lot more good things in bitcoin than fiat but most people will never realized that since they always go on the side of the government.

[1715157965]

1715157965

[1715157965]

1715157965

[1715157965]

1715157965

[1715157965]

1715157965

[1715157965]

1715157965

[1715157965]

1715157965

[Lanatsa]

It doesn't even make any sense for them to even pursue that narrative about Bitcoin in the first place. How many scams and money laundering and many other financial vises have been done with Fiat currency, why was there no rally of banning Fiat currency? Bitcoin was just been hated upon without any meaningful reason but this will fade with more positive news coming forth about the Bitcoin ecosystem that it is not as bad as what they believe.

There are so many criminal activities happened to fiats and people gets used to this that's why they do not question it anymore but btc is a new thing to them and maybe they don't also like the approach of btc that's why they throw any negative statements that they can think of and maybe those people compare btc to paypal because we know that paypal have a reversible function where you can easily recover your money if you think you send it from a scammer but btc cannot do it although there is still another way to track cyber criminals and this news is a proof that it is possible in btc. However, I don't think haters will stop after this but they will find another angle to continue their hate in btc.

  As long as bitcoin is never accepted by the government, the people will always throw negative criticisms that will ruin the good reputation of bitcoin. But this news is something an eye opener to those who go against bitcoin because if this incident happened in fiat, then it will be very hard to recover the amount, but since its all in bitcoin, its transparency makes it easier to be traced by the FBI. There are a lot more good things in bitcoin than fiat but most people will never realized that since they always go on the side of the government.

People would really always be residing with fiat or something that they've been used to since on the time that they are aware about monetary value and other things attached to it and if there's something

new and it doesn't really fit out into their interest then you could really expect that there would really be criticism and would emphasis about its negative rather than into its pro's
which is something that it isn't surprising for someone do say. Safe haven is something that possible here on crypto but we know that not everything could be seen on blockchain could be traced up
because it depends on how someone would really be trying out to mixed out their transactions.

[Sled]

               Government wants regulations because hunting down such crypto currency offenders isn't as easy as what they are trying to portray. It consumes a lot of time, effort and resources. Had the amount not been that big or if the victims didn't care enough about their stolen funds, I highly doubt that the FBI would do anything about it. This is just a way for the FBI to boost their reputation and scare off some people who would want to use crypto in crimes. At least that's how I understand this.

That is why the government just throws fake information in order to discourage people not to using crypto illegally as they can still be caught and traced. But they can manage to take all of these offenders to put in jail and that is why illegalities still exist and no way to stop them. And that is more hard for them to trace once they are using crypto and they don't want it as their biggest challenge to identifying illegal activities and the offenders due to the anonymous identity.

[evilgreed]

That is why the government just throws fake information in order to discourage people not to using crypto illegally as they can still be caught and traced. But they can manage to take all of these offenders to put in jail and that is why illegalities still exist and no way to stop them. And that is more hard for them to trace once they are using crypto and they don't want it as their biggest challenge to identifying illegal activities and the offenders due to the anonymous identity.

               I mean, what else can they do though? They're out of options and they don't want to surrender their control. That is why thet use the well-being and safety of the people as a perfect alibi to suppress the crypto community and discourage other people that are looking into coming in this industry. Just makes you hate the way governments do things. Oh well, they won't succeed anyway, some countries are even changing their stance towards crypto currencies. Just let these damn bastard to what they want for now.

[Woodie]

When cryptocurrencies or rather when bitcoin started off, we pretty were all told bitcoin was completely anonymous and all that stuff which many of us belived but after a few went by it was actually discovered that users are just pseudonimous but not really ptivacy protected of these crypto transactions unless extra care is done such as the use of tumblers and the alike which makes it not a haven for criminals as transactions aren't hidden.

[Betwrong]

It's amazing how the Feds can get to the bottom of all these crypto heists and frauds yet cannot solve large-scale money laundering done on USD. It's as if they're choosing which currencies will they work on and scream to the world that they're the best at what they do. Anyway, with the recent bust on the $3.5B heist, this will make criminals have second thoughts on whether they should use crypto or not to launder their money. Knowing that the FBI has tools to track them, I doubt they will still prefer crypto after all.

Good point! The thing is that these days criminals can never be smarter than a team of professionals hired by Feds. I mean, they used to be in the past, but not anymore. For this reason, I think, criminals will leave crypto space for good and return to their old time-tested schemes that have always worked. Maybe those large-scale money laundering crimes done on USD, you are talking about, weren't solved exactly because the criminals never touched crypto.

[kryptqnick]

               Government wants regulations because hunting down such crypto currency offenders isn't as easy as what they are trying to portray. It consumes a lot of time, effort and resources. Had the amount not been that big or if the victims didn't care enough about their stolen funds, I highly doubt that the FBI would do anything about it. This is just a way for the FBI to boost their reputation and scare off some people who would want to use crypto in crimes. At least that's how I understand this.

That is why the government just throws fake information in order to discourage people not to using crypto illegally as they can still be caught and traced. But they can manage to take all of these offenders to put in jail and that is why illegalities still exist and no way to stop them. And that is more hard for them to trace once they are using crypto and they don't want it as their biggest challenge to identifying illegal activities and the offenders due to the anonymous identity.

Hunting down crypto offenders isn't easy, but the same holds for fiat offenders as well. There are many robberies and funds aren't often recovered. And while the FBI does boost its reputation by this, I don't see why it's a bad thing. I don't mind if criminals get scared of using cryptos, to be honest. I don't think they're throwing fake information, though. They did recover the funds, so they did manage to trace them well enough. And cash is arguably way more difficult to trace than cryptos. As for banks, I think it's possible to reach pretty much the same level of traceability with them as with cryptos by creating lots of offshore companies that are parts of other companies (and the list goes on and on long enough to make tracing very difficult), so I don't think it's really harder to catch crypto offenders than non-crypto offenders. Both can be very smart and elaborate or very stupid and careless.

[tygeade]

Frauds, money laundering, and any criminal acts in regards to money can be easy to trace by the authorities if they are using fiat money but if they are only using crypto like Bitcoin, that can be hard for them as they can still hide their real identity. With what OP has mentioned, they leave a trace that made them become visible and hints that it lead who are they.

Well, it has to say that they should have to pay for what they are doing.

Yes, if they have stayed on Bitcoin, the government wouldn't have been able to capture them. The only reason why the government was able to trace them was because they tried selling the Bitcoin and converting to Fiat, that was what made it easy for the government to be able to identify them and them finally getting caught.

According to the OP's story, the couple has been holding their coin for a very long time and always making some moves with the coin on the blockchain as a way to distract the attention and make it hard for them to be traced, and all those years there wasn’t a way for the government to be able to know who they really are, until the time they decided to withdraw it. With that said I have to add that I do not support bad, so anyone who does something wrong should be punished and it is good that they were caught.

[TimeTeller]

Frauds, money laundering, and any criminal acts in regards to money can be easy to trace by the authorities if they are using fiat money but if they are only using crypto like Bitcoin, that can be hard for them as they can still hide their real identity. With what OP has mentioned, they leave a trace that made them become visible and hints that it lead who are they.

Well, it has to say that they should have to pay for what they are doing.

Yes, if they have stayed on Bitcoin, the government wouldn't have been able to capture them. The only reason why the government was able to trace them was because they tried selling the Bitcoin and converting to Fiat, that was what made it easy for the government to be able to identify them and them finally getting caught.

According to the OP's story, the couple has been holding their coin for a very long time and always making some moves with the coin on the blockchain as a way to distract the attention and make it hard for them to be traced, and all those years there wasn’t a way for the government to be able to know who they really are, until the time they decided to withdraw it. With that said I have to add that I do not support bad, so anyone who does something wrong should be punished and it is good that they were caught.

They couldn't stay in bitcoin because at some point they need their own fiat to spend it.
And there's limited options on how to spend your btc without submitting KYC.
But do you really think that they are the main culprits of the hack?
I believe there are other parties or individuals involved on this, not only this couple.
It seems to me, they are just third party for this heist. Because if you are a real hacker, you won't do such stupid mistake.
Anyway, at least some have been recovered. It took years before they got some of it.

[LUCKMCFLY]

Was it possible for them to have avoided getting caught? I think so. The reason why they're caught is more of their own faults rather than the capabilities of the FBI to track them down. Of course it is very hard to be extremely careful every step of the way. It might even be next to impossible to avoid committing an act of negligence or carelessness forever. It is hard not to commit a mistake and leave a trace. But it could be done.

If they are not been suspected of suspicious activities leading to the exchanges reports, they are still free till now. But yes, they leave such traces that could help the FBI to detect the couple's fraud activities. Honestly, they are not too smart to hide their doings but they are too bold enough to leave such a trace.

Even we think it was a success story for the FBI in hunting criminals like them, keeping anonymous won't easily give them the idea of who are they. But with their simple mistake could somewhat give a hint to the authorities and that is the reason why they end up getting caught.

On an article I read that they were very careful in redeeming the bitcoins to cash in one way or another. They tried to buy some gift cards and tried on another website which was then accessed by FBI and got their data according to the law enforcement. I think that all happened because of the efforts of the FBI who not let these hackers to escape the money of people.

This reminds me that criminals prefer fiat money to digital money, when Pablo Escobar's time handled a lot of money and the way they counted millions of dollars was by weighing them, just like weighing 1Kg of beef , well, the dollars and that was the way for them to count quickly because it was a lot of money that counting it normally was something almost endless, it took a long time, and like that in physical form, well it was palpable, sure, maybe that's why the great crimes have been done with fiat money than digital money.

[Mahanton]

Was it possible for them to have avoided getting caught? I think so. The reason why they're caught is more of their own faults rather than the capabilities of the FBI to track them down. Of course it is very hard to be extremely careful every step of the way. It might even be next to impossible to avoid committing an act of negligence or carelessness forever. It is hard not to commit a mistake and leave a trace. But it could be done.

If they are not been suspected of suspicious activities leading to the exchanges reports, they are still free till now. But yes, they leave such traces that could help the FBI to detect the couple's fraud activities. Honestly, they are not too smart to hide their doings but they are too bold enough to leave such a trace.

Even we think it was a success story for the FBI in hunting criminals like them, keeping anonymous won't easily give them the idea of who are they. But with their simple mistake could somewhat give a hint to the authorities and that is the reason why they end up getting caught.

On an article I read that they were very careful in redeeming the bitcoins to cash in one way or another. They tried to buy some gift cards and tried on another website which was then accessed by FBI and got their data according to the law enforcement. I think that all happened because of the efforts of the FBI who not let these hackers to escape the money of people.

This reminds me that criminals prefer fiat money to digital money, when Pablo Escobar's time handled a lot of money and the way they counted millions of dollars was by weighing them, just like weighing 1Kg of beef , well, the dollars and that was the way for them to count quickly because it was a lot of money that counting it normally was something almost endless, it took a long time, and like that in physical form, well it was palpable, sure, maybe that's why the great crimes have been done with fiat money than digital money.

Aside with those impressions and preference on which people do get used to deal with fiat since the beginning of time on which they do love to accumulate fiat and deal with fiat as much as they like
and now that crypto does exist or simply talks about digital currencies then they do add up some option but doesnt mean that they would leave out on something that they've been dealing through ages.
Bitcoin is indeed not a safe haven for criminals but the media and government do continue to push it up to be like this.

[7788bitcoin]

~
This reminds me that criminals prefer fiat money to digital money, when Pablo Escobar's time handled a lot of money and the way they counted millions of dollars was by weighing them, just like weighing 1Kg of beef , well, the dollars and that was the way for them to count quickly because it was a lot of money that counting it normally was something almost endless, it took a long time, and like that in physical form, well it was palpable, sure, maybe that's why the great crimes have been done with fiat money than digital money.

I have heard about stories of Pablo Escobar and how he used to deal with his money and how he used to burn dollars to get warmth and there are many stories along these lines, even now all the illegal deals are done with fiat currency, either in digital or otherwise but you cannot track them. Even criminals use any form of currency but the problem is all the transactions in Bitcoin can be tracked and hence doing any illegal activity is like having a money trail.

[Smartvirus]

each solved crime becomes "work on mistakes" for other swindlers. Experienced scammers, I think, draw conclusions. The police probably shouldn't talk about what they're doing to track down and detect scammers. By showing all the details of the search in this story, the police only exacerbate further disclosures.

Apparently, it's always about a tray and a tray could be traced anytime. It's not always easy to perfectly organise a crime especially one that comes with huge numbers. The schemes to the success of this tracking should remain a secret as, spilling it out only leads to more and more precautionary measures by futuristic criminals.

We only heard of criminals that have been caught, but how many criminals are there who never tried to cash out what they stole and who never tried bad privacy practices when sending their transactions? It seems that the couple that is accused of money laundering has never heard about good bitcoin mixers, the dangers of KYC, the risks of using centralized exchanges, coin control, labeling, CoinJoin, Whirlpool, and other things that good money launderers must know about to launder money more successfully.

Not to even mention the wallet addresses that has been lost due to forgotten seed phrases or even lost private keys. Perhaps it's not a crime but, should an individual source for some private investigation onto its economy of wallet address and seed phrase or private key, it should be possible. This implies, no tray, no detection or recovery hence, wallets security is completely in the users activities.

[Betwrong]

~
This reminds me that criminals prefer fiat money to digital money, when Pablo Escobar's time handled a lot of money and the way they counted millions of dollars was by weighing them, just like weighing 1Kg of beef , well, the dollars and that was the way for them to count quickly because it was a lot of money that counting it normally was something almost endless, it took a long time, and like that in physical form, well it was palpable, sure, maybe that's why the great crimes have been done with fiat money than digital money.

I have heard about stories of Pablo Escobar and how he used to deal with his money and how he used to burn dollars to get warmth and there are many stories along these lines, even now all the illegal deals are done with fiat currency, either in digital or otherwise but you cannot track them. Even criminals use any form of currency but the problem is all the transactions in Bitcoin can be tracked and hence doing any illegal activity is like having a money trail.

Exactly. That's what I would like to emphasize here: very soon when all those criminals come to realize that using cryptocurrencies(not only Bitcoin) can very likely lead to lead to their capture, they will stop using it, and Bitcoin will no longer be associated with criminal activity, like, ever.

[buwaytress]

Exactly. That's what I would like to emphasize here: very soon when all those criminals come to realize that using cryptocurrencies(not only Bitcoin) can very likely lead to lead to their capture, they will stop using it, and Bitcoin will no longer be associated with criminal activity, like, ever.

Savvy ones already know, and the fact that as early as 2018, blockchain analytics provided evidence that less than 1% of all transactions were for illegal purposes didn't stop the news mills from recycling the same tired thread. Study from Elliptic, which I believe has also worked with enforcement agencies.

The study looked at 4 years -- 2013-2016 -- and the highest was in fact in 2013 where it was just over 1%.

"Only 0.61 percent of the money entering conversion services during the four years analyzed were verifiably from illicit sources, with the highest proportion (1.07 percent) seen in 2013."

Dead horses still provide beating value to those eager to consume it.

[Zilon]

I want to know, what else does the government want to regulate the cryptocurrency blockchain for if the FBI can perform such a rigorous search on all the virtual accounts that have been created online by the couple? And found the private key linked to the wallet that received the funds, and they recovered over $3.5 billion and recorded it as the biggest seizure in the cryptocurrency niche.

You can't expect the government to buy into a complete decentralized technology and one that can't link a particular address to a particular individual except by monitoring its consisyent transactions across exchanges.

I think the transaction the Government cannot track in the block-chain technology has not be made. FBI claim that they will endeavor to trace any fraudulent activity in the cryptocurreny network through their 21st century investigative technique. (I don't know what they mean by that)

The blockchain in the decentralized network still covers your full privacy but once associated with an exchange the privacy is lost. The FBI was able to carry out rgeir search because the couple had a link with bitfinex which is very much a regulated exchange so doing their tracking might seem much easier

[xSkylarx]

~
This reminds me that criminals prefer fiat money to digital money, when Pablo Escobar's time handled a lot of money and the way they counted millions of dollars was by weighing them, just like weighing 1Kg of beef , well, the dollars and that was the way for them to count quickly because it was a lot of money that counting it normally was something almost endless, it took a long time, and like that in physical form, well it was palpable, sure, maybe that's why the great crimes have been done with fiat money than digital money.

I have heard about stories of Pablo Escobar and how he used to deal with his money and how he used to burn dollars to get warmth and there are many stories along these lines, even now all the illegal deals are done with fiat currency, either in digital or otherwise but you cannot track them. Even criminals use any form of currency but the problem is all the transactions in Bitcoin can be tracked and hence doing any illegal activity is like having a money trail.

Exactly. That's what I would like to emphasize here: very soon when all those criminals come to realize that using cryptocurrencies(not only Bitcoin) can very likely lead to lead to their capture, they will stop using it, and Bitcoin will no longer be associated with criminal activity, like, ever.

Because in the end you will be converting the money into something that is associated with a real person, unless they buy some identity to spread it, but I know there are still ways around it, yes, it can be tracked but at the same time anonymous and also easy transactions, with the real fiat it could be tracked because you have banks or if holding large amounts of money, but later on it will be bypassed and not able to detect to it, with the virtual fiat it could be tracked because you have banks

[ShowOff]

If indeed the FBI is able to track criminal acts on the Bitcoin network, this will make it easier for Bitcoin to be accepted by all governments in various countries, because so far the government still suspects Bitcoin is a haven for criminal acts.
Hopefully this is Bitcoin's path to light so that Bitcoin can be used as legal tender in all countries. I am very happy to see this news, criminals will think twice about laundering money through Bitcoin and Bitcoin can be called clean from criminal acts.

You know how the FBI works? They could wait years for the culprit to do something too stupid to catch. Obviously the hacking couple didn't have much knowledge about how to spend the bitcoin they hacked without leaving a large amount of traces behind. I don't know if they use a mixer to erase transaction traces for all the bitcoin they have spent or not, but centralized exchanges backfire for bitcoin hackers in most cases.

By far bitcoin is a tool and savvy hackers will probably know how they hide and remove any trace of the bitcoin they have. I would like to know if the bitcoins that have been labeled in his wallet "hacker wallet" can also be processed by a mixer or not, and if it can be processed so that output transactions are no longer traceable then I'd really like to know how the FBI can reveal it.

[haasanjui]

Bitcoin is not safe heaven for criminals because they use crypto for make their illegal fund into white. And many people make scam online and they have many of idears to scam people

[Kasabus]

Recently, I went through the article about the biggest cryptocurrency fraud in history executed by a married couple.  Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, husband, and wife, have been tracked down by the FBI for laundering 119,754 bitcoins from Bitfinex five years ago. After many attempts to rinse the money through chain hopping on numerous anonymity enhanced cryptocurrencies like monero. The FBI was able to apprehend them.

I want to know, what else does the government want to regulate the cryptocurrency blockchain for if the FBI can perform such a rigorous search on all the virtual accounts that have been created online by the couple? And found the private key linked to the wallet that received the funds, and they recovered over $3.5 billion and recorded it as the biggest seizure in the cryptocurrency niche.

“Criminals always leave tracks, and today’s case is a reminder that the FBI has the tools to follow the digital trail, wherever it may lead,” said FBI Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate.

I think the transaction the Government cannot track in the block-chain technology has not be made. FBI claim that they will endeavor to trace any fraudulent activity in the cryptocurreny network through their 21st century investigative technique. (I don't know what they mean by that)

we're able to uncover the source of even the most sophisticated schemes and bring justice to those who try to exploit the security of our financial infrastructure.

Read:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-alleged-conspiracy-launder-45-billion-stolen-cryptocurrency

If indeed the FBI is able to track criminal acts on the Bitcoin network, this will make it easier for Bitcoin to be accepted by all governments in various countries, because so far the government still suspects Bitcoin is a haven for criminal acts.
Hopefully this is Bitcoin's path to light so that Bitcoin can be used as legal tender in all countries. I am very happy to see this news, criminals will think twice about laundering money through Bitcoin and Bitcoin can be called clean from criminal acts.

This is so far an enlightenment to the government that bitcoin is not totally a safe haven for criminals since bitcoin brings transparency so all payment transactions can be easily observed which is a good thing to trace illegal activities. Hopefully this will change the mindset of the people that bitcoin is no longer good for criminal acts, and i guess it has never been. Illegal transactions are just a small percentage of the overall activity of bitcoin.