Breakthrough: OM seizes huge Bitcoin catch!
Seizing Bitcoin or crypto seemed impossible, but the Dutch investigative service succeeded.
The best thing to do is to confiscate money. Completely cash money, which criminals often use (or use), can be grabbed in no time at all. That is why an alternative is increasingly being used today: Bitcoin.
Seize Bitcoin
Bitcoin is very anonymous, so it is difficult to trace. You can also store it in ‘crypto wallets’ that are virtually unbreakable. Ideal as a means of payment for clandestine activities. Easy money laundering while the investigative service cannot do anything about it.
Investigation Service is doing something about it
Until the investigative service finds a way to track down and confiscate crypto. That has now worked: the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has caught a gigantic catch of 25 million euros in Bitcoin and crypto coins. It is not known how much money is involved and how much this helps in the big picture, but it certainly hurts, according to Rolf van Wegberg, researcher into crypto crime at TU Delft.
New record
The seizure of the crypto coins is a new record and an important catch in the fight against money laundering in this way. A press officer from the Public Prosecution Service says it is especially important that a signal is sent: Bitcoin and crypto wallets are no longer safe.
drugs
Crypto is nowadays often used as a means of payment in drug crime. Transactions are then done in crypto and the money can travel all over the world with just USB sticks. With the methods of the Public Prosecution Service, Bitcoin or a wallet can even be cracked by cracking copies. Then it turns out that Bitcoin still leaves traces and an identity can be found behind the payment. That is why names have already been found with the intercepted Bitcoin. (via NOS)
