Cash bans or restrictions on cash payments are primarily intended to prevent illegal flows of money. In contrast to cash payments, transfers and debits are usually easy to understand.
However, this transparency can be avoided with cryptocurrencies. And that's exactly what serious criminals use for their dirty business. The Italian mafia is apparently one of the biggest beneficiaries of anonymous digital payments.
This emerges from the latest report by the Italian anti-mafia police Dia to Parliament. Accordingly, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta uses cryptocurrencies to trade with Colombian cartels.
The 'Ndrangheta is primarily active in the cocaine business. The mafia is also active in cybercrime and the so-called darknet in order, as it is said, to inject huge flows of economic resources into the context of total illegality.
In plain language: The mafia moves enormous sums of money in the hidden corners of the Internet, the so-called Dark Web. Payments there are mainly made with digital currencies. In this way, the mafia can launder money or pay bills unnoticed.
Investigators have now also followed traces as far as Germany.
In August 2019, four Ukrainians were caught by the police in the Tuscan city of Lucca. According to investigators, they belonged to an organization that is said to have bought all types of drugs from cocaine to LSD to marijuana via the Dark Web in the Netherlands and Germany and paid for them with Bitcoin.
Source: DPA, Glomex
Article image: By Coyz0 / Shutterstock.com
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )