Using

[robertcarlyle]

Why have many crypto exchanges been shut down by the fbi and other police agencies? Recently garantex.io/org has been shut down because of money laundering but so have many others… how do criminals use exchanges to launder their money? Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

[franky1]

usually exchanges that knowingly do laundering are:
exchanges that lack registry with regulators
exchanges that lack doing CDD KYC(customer due diligence/know your customer)
exchanges that dont file any SARs(suspicious activity reports) with authorities

those types of exchanges look shady and catch the eye of authorities. authorities then only need to see or (honey trap perform) some criminal activity, to get the exchange into legal issues to shut them down

[BIT-BENDER]

Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

It's easy the FBI or any agency on the case can trace some of this wallet to some criminals they have been looking for. Don't forget that Crypto-currency is very transparent and you can see transactions made even if they hardly control the transactions, they can track them, some use other source like mixers to make their transactions difficult to track.

[franky1]

Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

It's easy the FBI or any agency on the case can trace some of this wallet to some criminals they have been looking for. Don't forget that Crypto-currency is very transparent and you can see transactions made even if they hardly control the transactions, they can track them, some use other source like mixers to make their transactions difficult to track.

for services that are shady its even easier
they simply have undercover/informants that join crypto forums/communication platforms and see what services people whisper about and then pretend to be customers of those services to test the service and boom, got 'em

[robertcarlyle]

But how do criminals know beforehand what exchanges will lend themselves for such illicit activities?

[katanic97]

Why have many crypto exchanges been shut down by the fbi and other police agencies? Recently garantex.io/org has been shut down because of money laundering but so have many others… how do criminals use exchanges to launder their money? Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

Crypto exchanges are often targeted for shutdown by the FBI and other agencies because some of them are frequently used for money laundering, sanction evasion, and other illegal activities. Criminals also use different currencies to obscure the trail and then withdraw funds to various accounts. When an exchange too easily allows anonymous transactions or avoids KYC (Know Your Customer) regulations, it immediately attracts attention.

[DaveF]

But how do criminals know beforehand what exchanges will lend themselves for such illicit activities?

Go back to what Franky said.
If they are not asking for KYC info or don't require it until stupid high amounts of money they they are probably willing to look the other way for where funds come from.

The flip side is there have been a bunch of exchanges that even though they were fast and loose with the AML rules also gave all the info they had to the authorities when asked.

-Dave

[PrivacyG]

But how do criminals know beforehand what exchanges will lend themselves for such illicit activities?

They do not know beforehand unless they read about them the way Franky said.  The ones who do not have prior knowledge of an exchange likely split the big amount into smaller transactions to test the limits if there are any.  If they have 1 million to launder, they can move 50 thousand 20 times through a centralized exchange.  Then, the largest loss is 50 thousand IF the exchange decides to pull the lever and seize.  Some exchanges simply do not care.  They are not hard to find either.  Some of them are dubious exchanges themselves with very curious transactions and orders that even seem very fake.

[Cryptohygenic]

Why have many crypto exchanges been shut down by the fbi and other police agencies? Recently garantex.io/org has been shut down because of money laundering but so have many others… how do criminals use exchanges to launder their money? Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

Sometimes it is not that the exchange is responsible for the crime but because they have failed to build solid security network, the government would interfer using the security operative to sanction the exchange and if need be of shutting it down in other to safe people from being victimized, of course there will be no injustice of it.
Also, there are times some loopholes on the exchange linking to money laundering being masterminded by disreputable exchanges or their internal staffs being the architects of the criminal acts being carried in that exchange.
So, the governments will have every rights to shutdown such exchange.

[robertcarlyle]

So do very savvy criminals use exchanges to launder their money or somewhere else?

[Stalker22]

Yeah, its pretty straightforward why crypto exchanges sometimes get closed down by officials.  The FBI and whatnot have special units looking into dodgy money stuff happening online these days.  There are ways to track where the bitcoin and altcoins are moving.  So if some exchange isnt following the rules or people are doing illegal things there, the regulators will jump in. 

I mean these agencies arent out to get all crypto traders or anything.  but they take financial crimes seriously with the rise of blockchain. and  If an exchange leaves the door open for money laundering or terrorism financing or whatever by not verifying users properly, its gonna get shut down.  Most traders just want a fair place to buy and sell, but some platforms enable shady business. 

[franky1]

So do very savvy criminals use exchanges to launder their money or somewhere else?

we know you are a scammer, that was for sure when you were trying to ask too many specific questions trying to generate a story to pretend you were a early adopter in previous topics

and now you are asking about how to laundering funds happen and how are people and services caught.. yea we know where your leading your questions towards next, you want links right? you want to know what groups to join to find ways to launder funds.. go on admit it, (without creating another topic.)

[PX-Z]

Recently garantex.io/org has been shut down because of money laundering but so have many others…

There's an answer to your question already, especially if these exchanges are not government complaint, and don't follow authorities AML law.

how do criminals use exchanges to launder their money?

An exchange allows you to deposit X coins, trade them for other pairs like Y coins and Z coins, and then withdraw both. If the exchange is decentralized and does not require KYC, it becomes easy to conduct these transactions anonymously, making it difficult to identify the owner or launderer. This is why money laundering can be easily facilitated on such exchanges.

Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

Chainanalysis is very common, if the perpetrators address is already identified it's easy for anyone to trace its transactions, unless they use mixers and non-KYC exchange to launder those coins.

[franky1]

the easiest trick the authorities done in last few years to identify exchanges evading regulations:
using agents at us embassy's in russia to simply be customers of exchanges using their russian bank accounts and see which exchanges allowed the customers to deposit and trade. .. because us exchanges had regulations to not serve russian accounts, it was a easy honey pot trap technique to find exchanges ignoring regulations, to then get court orders to then get more involved

as for how criminals get away with laundering, well im not saying to OP how as i know his true intentions, so i dont want to enable him, if he cant work it out for himself, he doesnt deserve to know

[Cryptohygenic]

So do very savvy criminals use exchanges to launder their money or somewhere else?

You know what it means by Know Your Customers (KYC)? That is users revealing of their personal documents (profiles) in the exchange platforms and thereabouts, users are not self custody of their funds because the exchange platforms does not generate private seed phrases for the users to be personalize of being 100%  in charge of their funds and privacies. That is why it is said that "not your Key, not your coin". Meaning your coin in the exchange is limited to give you a 100% self custody.
As it goes. Scammers being aware to how the system works, they tends to target users storing their funds in there by cracking/hacking the security system of the exchange and steals holders funds.
That o just to say the security system of the exchange platforms are weak to be compared to self custodial wallets.

[fikrett]

As it was said, exchanges that are shady have many facts to consider them as such from the start if you dig deeper.

I am just interested in what your final goal is.

[Solosanz]

The reason is simple, they shut down Garantex because it's Russian based exchange, if it was not owned by Russian, China or North Korea, they will not shutdown it easily.

Technically it's not possible to launder money using Bitcoin, when you send your coins to x exchange, x mixer or any sites, anyone can track the coins in explorer. Once they find out the coins are linked to x exchange, x mixer, or the illegal sites, they can just freeze the coins.

[PX-Z]

The reason is simple, they shut down Garantex because it's Russian based exchange, if it was not owned by Russian, China or North Korea, they will not shutdown it easily.

Remember Yobit, it's a russian based exchange that runs few how many years already, in fact its one of the oldest exchange still working today, and has lots of negative reputation, AFAIK they don't have KYC either. So your statement is false.

Technically it's not possible to launder money using Bitcoin, when you send your coins to x exchange, x mixer or any sites, anyone can track the coins in explorer. Once they find out the coins are linked to x exchange, x mixer, or the illegal sites, they can just freeze the coins.

It is possible, but no, not all exchange will freeze those funds transfer from hacks, launderer, etc. You can track coins on explorer but it does not always mean its still the same owner especially if it goes to mixer, and its rare that mixer will coordinate to those exchanges to freeze the funds sent if that's what you mean.

[franky1]

The reason is simple, they shut down Garantex because it's Russian based exchange, if it was not owned by Russian, China or North Korea, they will not shutdown it easily.

Remember Yobit, it's a russian based exchange that runs few how many years already, in fact its one of the oldest exchange still working today, and has lots of negative reputation, AFAIK they don't have KYC either. So your statement is false.

yobit serves russians (not part of us jurisdiction) yobit withdrawals are russian bank account(not US accounts) and uses other payment systems like QIWI, thus not US bank
so yobit is not a us registered company to be under the rules of us regulation thus not a us gov jurisdictional problem.

if however they did accept deposits/withdrawals from americans and such.. watch how fast FATF will swoop in

[YOSHIE]

Who or what finds out that such exchanges were lending themselves for such criminal activity?

Only law enforcers such as the FBI know how to track criminal transactions/crime funds.

Maybe you need to read about Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), At (IC3) there is at least a little explanation/information about criminal acts committed by crime.
Example:

Cryptocurrency transactions are permanently recorded on publicly available distributed ledgers called blockchains. As a result, law enforcement can trace cryptocurrency transactions to follow money in ways not possible with other financial systems.

The point: those who know exactly how to track only law enforcers who are, we are not FBI who understand in that matter.