Australian Federal Investigators Look at Bitcoin's Organized Crime Role
One of Australia's primary national law enforcement agencies, the Australian Crime Commission (ACC), is investigating bitcoin's role in organized crime in an official operation known as 'Project Longstrike'. According to a report published by Reuters earlier today, ACC Executive Director Judy Lind said that investigators were aware of and would be monitoring "misuse of virtual currencies to facilitate criminal activity." She said: "Organized crime groups continue to make use of darknets to harbor trading in illicit commodities, including child exploitation material, illicit drugs and....
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On January 16-18 in Doha, Qatar, a large group of representatives from the Basel Institute on Governance, Europol, Interpol, and authorities from Qatar met to discuss money laundering and digital currencies. The event, filled with investigators from all around the world, focused on ideas on how to tackle regulatory concerns tied to these emerging....
The Austrian and German governments are funding a research effort focused on the use of digital currencies in organized crime. Dubbed ‘BitCrime’, the initiative is backed by a number of governmental agencies in the two countries, and is split into two sub-projects. The German sub-project is primarily supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and has a budget of €1.8m (roughly $2m). Other supporting institutions include the country’s Federal Criminal Police Office, the University of Münster, and a number of federal offices dedicated to law enforcement and financial....
As crypto use spreads to every nook and cranny of society, so does its misuse of the system to perform novel crimes and launder illicit funds. While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are now being widely used in nefarious activities, the decentralized nature of blockchain technology presents law enforcement with a vital new tool to combat organized crime. […]
A bilateral research initiative sees Germany and Austria funding the project which is focused on organized financial crime specifically committed with virtual currencies. The project, titled ‘BITCRIME’ will see funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology (BMVIT). The project will see a total of €2.4 million (approx. $2.75 million) and will span a total of 25 months. Citing the growth of the use of virtual currencies which are independent of central banks or other authorities, the....