Chainalysis data shows that 4068 criminal whales (roughly 4% of all whales) are hodling more than $25 billion worth of cryptocurrency between them. The blockchain analytics firm defines criminal whales as any private wallet that holds more than $1 million worth of crypto with over 10% of the funds received from illicit addresses tied to activity such as scams, fraud and malware. The data is from the “Criminal Balances” section of the Crypto Crime Report that explores criminal activity on the blockchain over 2021 and early 2022. The wide-ranging report also covers topics such as Ransomware, Malware, Darknet markets and …

While the value of cryptocurrencies has varied wildly in the last year, this has not diminished crypto’s attractiveness to criminals. Many of them are moving their illegal activities underground and outside the view of law enforcement. Because of the public nature of most blockchains, however, this rapid movement shouldn’t be a major concern to law enforcement agencies. With the right tools and training, following the proceeds of crypto-enabled crime is actually not as difficult as it may seem. However, intelligence agencies must have a cryptocurrency investigation plan that includes the right tools to lawfully collect digital evidence and the properly …

The United States government is offering rewards in cryptocurrency for information relating to the operations of enemy state-backed hackers or suspected terrorists. The U.S. State Department’s new “Rewards for Justice” platform allows informants to submit anonymous tips and information in return for rewards in digital assets. The platform was promoted at the Black Hat USA event, which ran from July 31 to Aug. 5 in Las Vegas, with users able to submit tips via an unsecured Wi-Fi network called #Rewardsnotransoms. The open network was purposely set up to encourage attendees to log in and access the RFJ website, according to …

The U.S. Department of State has announced it will be taking a seemingly more active role in the pursuit of keeping some crypto users accountable. According to a Thursday Bloomberg report, the Biden administration intends to ramp up efforts to trace cryptocurrency payments, particularly when it comes to ransomware attacks. The government plans to address cybersecurity and crypto’s role as payment in such attacks. The report comes as the State Department recently announced its Rewards for Justice program would be offering bounties of up to $10 million for assistance in identifying actors responsible for cyberattacks on critical infrastructure in the …

U.S. authorities have arrested the alleged mastermind behind a multi-million darknet-based BTC mixing service, Bitcoin Fog, after analyzing 10 years of blockchain data. Authorities have issued a chilling warning to other users of illegal blockchain services: Anything you do today may come back to haunt you as “this activity is on this ledger forever” and ever-more sophisticated analytics technology can track down crimes committed years earlier. For approximately a decade, Bitcoin Fog has enabled users to conceal the origin and destination of its users’ crypto assets. However, the Internal Revenue Service is charging Russian-Swedish citizen, Roman Sterlingov, with laundering more …

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has announced charges against California resident James Roland Jones in the first-ever enforcement action from the commission to target securities fraud on the darknet. According to the March 18 complaint, Jones is accused of accessing a darknet-based insider trading forum in late 2016 to seek material non-public information, or MNPI, on which to trade securities. He was unsuccessful in obtaining any useful MNPI from the forum, but in the spring of 2017, Jones allegedly began selling insider stock tips himself under the false pretext he was privy to MNPI obtained both from the forum …

A recently released U.S. Department of Justice audit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) practices in regards to darknet criminal investigations concluded that the law enforcement agency is in disarray — and an overarching "cryptocurrency support strategy" might be among the solutions. According to an unclassified version of the audit released on Thursday, the FBI’s current darknet investigation efforts are — perhaps ironically — hampered by a “decentralized” set of practices, policies, and training programs, as well as compartmentalized intelligence leading to “redundant” efforts. Notably, the audit found that there are two separate Virtual Currency Teams that assist with …

According to The Daily Beast, outgoing United States President Donald Trump is considering granting clemency to Ross Ulbricht — the founder and operator of the pioneering darknet market, Silk Road. Ulbricht was arrested in 2013 and received two life sentences without parole for non-violent offenses in 2015. The anonymous sources relied on in the report claim that the White House counsel’s office has been reviewing documents related to Ulbricht’s case, and that the president has been made aware of the situation. Two sources claim that Trump has privately expressed sympathy for Ulbricht and has considered his name for the next …

The founder and operator of some of the first "mixing" services in crypto will have to cough up $60 million to United States regulators, even as he faces continued criminal charges. The U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, announced on Monday a $60 million fine against Larry Dean Harmon, the man behind Helix and Coin Ninja. Harmon was arrested in February for operating a stable of tumblers, or mixers, that Washington, D.C. prosecutors allege constitute unregistered money services businesses. Those charges against him say he laundered over $300 million in Bitcoin. According to today's announcement, "FinCEN’s investigation has …

Former police chief Yuri Zaitsev was recently sentenced to eight years in prison for acting as a bounty hunter for a dark web marketplace. In December 2018, Zaitsev was working as the leader of his unit within the Main Directorate for Drugs Control of the Republic of Khakassia — a law enforcement division analogous to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA. At that time, he initiated contact with the operator of a darknet marketplace, offering to help hunt down a man who had appropriated drugs that were entrusted to him for placement in dead drops. In Russia, unlike …

Empire Market, a major darknet marketplace for buying and selling illicit goods, has been offline for over 48 hours as of press time. Customers have begun to raise concerns about whether a distributed denial-of-service attack is causing the site to stay offline — or if something bigger is afoot. Twitter user Dark.fail, an anonymous journalist specializing in the Tor Project, suggested that the blackout “feels more stressful than [Empire market’s] frequent” downtime in 2019 when DDoS attacks kept the site offline for extended periods of time. Someone claiming to be one of Empire’s head moderators, named “Se7en”, issued an ambiguous …

According to recently published research, an attacker has found vulnerabilities in the Tor browser network that might have allowed them to steal Bitcoin (BTC) from users. Tor was developed by the U.S. government for anonymous internet communication and has since been adopted by privacy advocates. Because of its privacy-preserving features, it is also popular with the denizens of the Dark Web. Many in the crypto community rely on Tor, entrusting their Bitcoin transactions to its security and anonymity. Confirmed malicious Tor exit capacity controlled by a malicious player. Source: nusenu. However, according to nusenu, who discovered this attack, this might …