Criminal organizations and mafia groups are increasingly turning to crypto

Mafia groups and criminal organizations are increasingly using cryptocurrencies, according to the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate (DIA), an Italian anti-mafia police force that spoke to a German outlet. Zeit Online.

“All criminal organizations, including mafia-type ones, have an interest in using these tools for their business,” a DIA spokesperson said. Zeit Online. For his personal safety, the spokesperson was reportedly not identified.

The DIA also recently published a report on organized crime in Italy during the first six months of 2020 – the last period from which the data was taken.

“Ndrangheta, the country’s strongest and most powerful criminal syndicate, is becoming increasingly attuned to modern tools such as cryptocurrency and the deep web,” the DIA said in the report.

The report added that cryptocurrencies are being used to anonymously pay for synthetic drugs such as ecstasy or LSD, a trade that has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is not the first time that cryptocurrencies and the dark web have been used to facilitate crime. In fact, in 2020, dark web vendors made more money than ever before.

Cryptocurrency and the dark web

A Chainalysis report found that while dark web markets declined in number, revenue increased during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Although total revenue in the darknet market has already exceeded 2019 totals, the total number of purchases, and likely the number of customers as well, has declined significantly, although the remaining purchases are at higher values,” Chainalysis said last December.

Those rising revenues were measured with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and Tether, supporting the claims of the Italian Anti-Mafia Directorate.

Ingo Fiedler, co-founder of the Blockchain Research Lab, suggested that the data showed that illicit crypto finance is increasingly becoming the domain of sophisticated criminals – much like the mafia groups and organized crime organizations described by the DIA.

‘Only the most advanced people can now cover up their tracks. That prevents small dealers from participating in the market and creates a natural tendency towards fewer but larger dealers in those markets,” Fiedler said. Declutter at the time.

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