KANALCOIN NEWS – According to the news published by the Europol press release, Authorities in Spain recently arrested 11 perpetrators of crypto money laundering. The arrest operation process is Operation Tulipan Blanca or White Tulip which is coordinated by Europol and carried out by the Spanish Guardia Civil. The case of money laundering in crypto is predicted to reach more than 8 million Euros.
Meanwhile, according to Europol, the investigation was carried out in a crime circle that laundered funds for the sale of narcotics using credit cards and cryptocurrencies.
The perpetrator would take the money in cash, then deposit it back in small amounts into several third bank accounts. Because cash is already circulating in their financial system, they only need to transfer some illicit funds to drug dealers in Colombia.
Later the criminals will get a credit card linked to their account and they will travel to Colombia to withdraw money. However, after they realized that the way they used cash would be very easy to track, they finally started to switch to using Cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, the criminals started converting cash into Bitcoin via exchange exchanges, then later they would also convert it back into Colombian Pesos and only then would it be deposited into a bank account in Colombia on the same day.
The use of Crypto is a way out for criminals to carry out their actions so that they are not detected. But in fact the action was thwarted because of a special investigation conducted by Europol assisted by the Spanish Guardia Civil. Europol does not want to be caught up in this crime by using Crypto as a planned crime tool.
Through cooperation with the Finnish authorities, the police were able to establish that the exchange used by this criminal ring was located in Finland, and gather the necessary information to track down the perpetrators.
Not all the perpetrators of crimes have been arrested, it is reported that there are still around 137 people who are still in the process of being investigated by the Civil Guard. Provisional investigations showed that the suspects managed to save up to 8 million EURO in 174 different bank accounts. Europol also said that they had conducted special training to assist law enforcement officials in the process of identifying Crypto use by organized crime networks.
Meanwhile, Cointelegraph reported earlier on April 10, 2018, that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) had successfully conducted a seizure of backpage.com. The seizure was carried out over allegations that he laundered nearly half a billion dollars in illegal earnings, some through cryptocurrencies.
(*)
