Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg. Andy a senior technology writer at Wired. He previously worked as a staff writer at Forbes magazine and as a contributor to their online website.
Indeed, with every great advancement or popular service, criminals manage to insert themselves to commit new types of crime. Cryptocurrency (aka Bitcoin) is the latest example of a digital advancement under exploitation, creating black markets that hide financial transactions.
Yet this powerful technology allows criminals to actually conduct business right out in the open instead of hiding drug transactions, money laundering, and human trafficking in the analog world. In fact, during the pandemic, crypto’s value simply exploded but the damage had already been done.
Internet culture quickly baked the idea on social media sites and technology blogs, especially on the digital underground (Dark web) that this technology was in fact a digital, anonymous, private money source. And more importantly to criminals it was untraceable.
This is attributed to blockchain ledgers which are deployed anonymously. Andy reveals how digital criminal empires are built on crypto. Yet we also learn of their simple mistakes resulting in their takedown. Well….kinda of a takedown.