Criminals Thought Bitcoin Was the Perfect Hiding Place, but They Thought Wrong
Companies have popped up to help cops identify suspects who use Bitcoin, and savvy criminals are moving to other currencies.
By Mike Orcutt
A notice to people using Bitcoin for illicit purposes: you can run, but it’s getting a lot harder to hide. Law enforcement officials are using Bitcoin’s public ledger, called the blockchain, to follow the digital money and track down suspected criminals using it.
As the most popular cryptocurrency, Bitcoin has helped fuel the rise of ransomware attacks — extortion schemes, like the recent WannaCry cyberattack, in which hackers hold the contents of a victim’s computer hostage until they get paid. Criminals can use Bitcoin to collect ransoms easily and without having to reveal their identities. The currency has also been associated with online drug sales, money laundering, and sex trafficking.
But while Bitcoin users can withhold their identities, they can’t avoid revealing other information that can be useful to investigators. Every Bitcoin transaction is recorded on its blockchain, a publicly accessible record of all transactions made using the currency. Blockchains “provide a really useful source of truth,” says…
