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The largest financial institution in Germany, Deutsche Bank, raided the Frankfurt headquarters by local authorities under the suspicion of money laundering. While cryptography continues to be targeted by the press for the alleged use of decentralized systems by criminals, an increasing number of banks are being investigated for the processing of payments for criminal organizations.
On November 29, the BBC reported that a high-profile survey conducted by the German authorities would obtain the servers and files owned by Deutsche Bank to further assess whether the bank had processed over $ 350 million for customers of the British Virgin Islands involved in criminal activity operations.
Difference in numbers
In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that $ 9 million in criminal proceeds were recycled through ShapeShift, a very popular cryptocurrency trading platform based in Switzerland. WSJ said it was able to monitor illicit funds through information obtained on the Ethereum and Bitcoin public blockchains.
In response, ShapeShift said:
"$ 9m (although true) is 0.15% of ShapeShift trading volume over the period of time described We have a solid experience in meeting the law enforcement requirements, providing invaluable assistance in over 30 surveys in 13 different countries all over the world We work with other exchanges on an almost daily basis to identify and block thieves and criminals, through a ShapeShift self-policing group created to protect users and industry.We lock entire countries on the sanctions lists. an internal anti-money laundering program that uses forachment science.
For criminals, it may be much more risky and impractical to use cryptocurrencies to move funds because, unlike fiat transactions, through the use of public blockchain explorers and companies like Chainalytics, transactions processed through certain portfolios can be traced back to to exchanges.
For example, in South Korea, a first coin-issuance exit fraud (ICO) called PureBit has sought to cash in millions of dollars by fading with capital investors provided by the project.
Almost immediately after the funds of the PureBit account were transferred to Upbit, the country's largest cryptocurrency stock exchange, Upbit closed the accounts of the fraudsters and froze the funds.
As seen in the recent money laundering case with Deutsche Bank and the mega-scandal involving about $ 227 billion with Danske Bank in Belgium, the preferred method of criminal and criminal syndicates to draw up money, especially for offshore bank accounts at the time. abroad, it remains as legacy banking systems that, despite the strict regulations in force, have shown a poor record in blocking money laundering.
The addresses of the major cryptocurrencies may be labeled by the blockchain analysis companies and already, many of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance, have collaborated with companies like Chainalytics and Elliptic to crack down on money laundering.
Difference of scale
Compared to the $ 9 million accused of involvement in the ShapeShift case, the $ 350 million of Deutsche Bank, $ 227 billion of Danske Bank and dozens of money laundering scandals erupted in recent years show a clear difference in scale and intensity way in which the global banking system has been abused by criminals to launder money.
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