A recent report claims that criminals primarily use cryptocurrencies for money-laundering in Latin America. Most countries in the region lack serious security measures leading to exuberant thefts executed by organized criminal groups.
LATAM’s Dark Side
Compiled by the cyber intelligence company IntSights, the report went in-depth on Latin America’s involvement with illegal financial activities. More specifically, it outlined numerous sophisticated organized crime groups acting in the region. Yet, enterprise security teams are neglecting the issue. Therefore, illicit financial transactions in LATAM are continuously increasing.
In fact, the document noted that Latin American countries top the list of the world’s worst money laundering nations. It referred to a new operational method used by criminals – cryptocurrencies:
“Threat finance is evolving in Latin America as organized crime groups turn to cryptocurrency to launder large amounts of money and dive into the dark web to find hackers to hire.”
According to the first-ever blockchain forensics team, CipherTrace, criminals use several main tools for money laundering with cryptocurrencies. Those include unregulated exchanges that don’t require extensive know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) policies and “mixers.”
Interestingly enough, a former Microsoft employee was recently found guilty for stealing over $10 million and laundering it with such mixers.
As per the document, Colombia and Brazil lead in terms of illicit financial transactions.
Cryptocurrency Interest In LATAM
The report admitted the increased interest towards Bitcoin and some alternative coins in the region. It referred to peer-to-peer exchanges as the preferred method of buying or selling digital assets.
“While there are a host of cryptocurrency exchanges available to serve Latin American customers, the P2P platforms are typically the preferred method of Fiat currency to/from cryptocurrency exchange throughout the region.
Throughout 2019 and on into 2020, the well-known P2P platform LocalBitcoins experienced record growth in transaction volume across many Latin American countries.”
At 2019’s end, Cryptopotato reported the record-breaking Bitcoin trading volume in Argentina and Venezuela. Both countries are continuously recording high volumes, and Chile is not far behind. The latter reached a new ATH at the start of February 2020.
While some people imply the tough political situations in those countries as the primary reason for the high volume, the report brought up another possibility:
“P2P exchanges typically lack AML programs and perform little to no KYC due diligence, which entices criminal actors to utilize P2P versus traditional cryptocurrency exchanges.”
One user has already withdrawn a 70ETH ($11,000) – value CryptoDoll! A 4-week-young blockchain game dapp, CryptoDozer, hits record high NFT transactions, averaging 30,000 weekly transactions, eclipsing well-known flagship blockchain game, CryptoKitties. CryptoDozer is a blockchain-powered arcade game with the aim to collect various ETH-valued CryptoDolls by dropping coins. The game has seen thousands of…
Despite the bearish sentiment prevailing in the futures market and among traders, Ethereum’s recent price action provides a glimmer of hope, as it hints at the possibility of a short-term reversal to reclaim the 200-day moving average. Technical Analysis By Shayan The Daily Chart Ethereum’s price has been in a prolonged downtrend after failing to
A few hours back, Indian IT heavyweight, Tata Consultancy Services, announced the launch of Quartz™ Smart Solution for Crypto Services. The offering will help banks and other financial institutions provide ‘secure and seamless’ crypto trading facilities to their clientele. IT Giant TCS is Spearheading Crypto Adoption As per the official press release, Tata Consultancy Services’…
Tezos saw a small bounce after testing a key support area across major trading pairs. If XTZ can gain momentum above immediate resistance, a short-term bullish move is expected to kick. The bearish pressure may resume if the current support fails to hold. XTZ/USD: Tezos Struggles At Resistance, Can It Break Above $3 Key Resistance…
Leading cryptocurrency hardware wallet provider, Ledger, announced Wednesday that it suffered a data breach, which affected the personal information of thousands of users in late June. According to a detailed report published by Ledger today, the breach occurred on June 25. The attacker accessed a part of the company’s e-commerce and marketing database, containing mostly…
TL;DR XRP keeps gaining support from notable exchanges. The asset’s price has slightly increased in the past 24 hours, contrasting with the broader market correction. XRP’s price might be down 15% on a weekly scale, but interest in the asset remains high. Most recently, it received backing from a leading cryptocurrency exchange, an effort that
TL;DR Binance added six new pairs for margin trading to offer more flexibility. This move coincided with a 5% drop in Solana’s (SOL) price amidst a broader market correction. The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange – Binance – announced the addition of six new trading pairs. SOL/USDC, ARB/FDUSD, and DOCK/USDT were included as cross-margin pairs, whereas SOL/USDC
[PRESS RELEASE – New York City, New York, February 16th, 2024] Introducing Kadena SpireKey, a human-friendly and secure way to seamlessly interact with any application by removing complex signing processes. Kadena Spirekey “Unlike complex Web3 wallets today where you have to remember every wallet you’ve ever created, Kadena’s SpireKey uses WebAuthn, a technology that has
This week has been particularly volatile. Bitcoin went on a massive correction, jumped back to $40K, and dropped again just a few hours ago. The majority of the altcoins followed. Polkadot (DOT), however, went on an impressive rally as can be seen in the below ROI chart for the coins we’ve selected this week. Bitcoin…