U.S. Treasury Department released a list of the bitcoin addresses of Chinese drug kingpins that are operating international drug-trafficking rings. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control(OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has banned 12 bitcoin and litecoin addresses by causing financial disruptions in the drug networks.
Warning about Crypto Drug Schemes
OFAC released names of three Chinese nationals as “significant” narcotics traffickers under the Treasury’s Kingpin Act
-Fujing Zheng
-Guanghua Zheng
-Xiaobing Yan
FinCEN director Kenneth Blanco advised financial institutions and warned them about the financial schemes that are related to the trafficking of fentanyl and other drugs involved in the business. Bitcoin is considered as the best way by these drug traffickers and criminals to transfer funds across borders and make payments for their sales and purchase.
Since the year 2000, about 2,200 people and organizations have been identified that fall under the Kingpin Act because of their involvement in the drug trafficking business. The U.S. Government have quickly learned about the cryptocurrencies as many criminals and organizations have moved to the crypto world to keep their business up and to run.
Most of the recent drug busts were made by doing blockchain analysis, and the buyers used those to pay for the drugs. Bitcoin is used in 95% of the crypto crimes. Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in April 2019 indicted 3 men for laundering $2.3 million in Bitcoin with the help of debit cards that had pre-loaded Bitcoins in them.
Self-proclaimed Bitcoin inventor Craig Wright recently flipped on Bitcoin saying that it is only useful for criminals for money laundering and drug trafficking.
