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Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

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Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#21

Post by toomuchtodo »

twostorytower wrote: post #19

Bitcoin is a dream come true for the FBI/CIA. There are companies building sophisticated software to track the routing of shady payments through the blockchain (wouldn't be surprised if Palantir does this). Eventually, crypto finds it way towards a tangible asset that can be tied to somebody and it's just a matter of a paper trail.

> There are companies building sophisticated software to track the routing of shady payments through the blockchain

https://www.chainalysis.com/ (no affiliation)

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#22

Post by vkou »

mullingitover wrote: post #20
Hydraulix9899 wrote: post #2

There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. In reality, the block chain is public (and all of its transactions inside... that is how distributed ledger consensus is achieved among miners) and the on-ramps and off-ramps between fiat are all logged / tracked, especially Coinbase (since they are taking the "safe route" and playing by all of the rules with governments / regulators). Your la…

> There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. Is this why we've successfully caught every single ransomware operation transacting in crypto?

To be fair, you have to look at the enormous number of ransomware operators that are conducting their business in fiat...

Humm. I suppose that there aren't very many of them. Perhaps cryptocurrencies do make some forms of criminal enterprises much easier to operate. I'm willing to accept that 'Hitman for hire' might not be one of them, though - mostly because you need a local presence, at which point, taking payment in cash has a number of advantages.

It would be quite difficult to operate a ransomware operation out of, say, Belarus if you expected your victims to pay by posting you envelopes stuffed with cash.

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#24

Post by consp »

mullingitover wrote: post #20
Hydraulix9899 wrote: post #2

There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. In reality, the block chain is public (and all of its transactions inside... that is how distributed ledger consensus is achieved among miners) and the on-ramps and off-ramps between fiat are all logged / tracked, especially Coinbase (since they are taking the "safe route" and playing by all of the rules with governments / regulators). Your la…

> There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. Is this why we've successfully caught every single ransomware operation transacting in crypto?

They might have enough knowledge to use other currencies as intermediaries. I think the OP means criminals in general and not ones with a bit more knowledge.

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#25

Post by f38zf5vdt »

cwkoss wrote: post #8
Hydraulix9899 wrote: post #2

There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. In reality, the block chain is public (and all of its transactions inside... that is how distributed ledger consensus is achieved among miners) and the on-ramps and off-ramps between fiat are all logged / tracked, especially Coinbase (since they are taking the "safe route" and playing by all of the rules with governments / regulators). Your la…

Yep. The Bitcoin Blockchain is a permanent historical ledger. As time passes and info about who transacted what becomes public, the cost of identifying a transaction decreases. (Assuming Bitcoin is still around) we should assume that over time, the cost to unmask any given btc txn to asymptotically approach $0. Even if you escape the statute of limitations, there is a good chance your grandchildren will be able to se…

> there is a good chance your grandchildren will be able to see what you did with Bitcoin by just looking it up on a public website in half a century.

That's all of the internet, forget blockchains.

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#26

Post by xgulfie »

twostorytower wrote: post #19

Bitcoin is a dream come true for the FBI/CIA. There are companies building sophisticated software to track the routing of shady payments through the blockchain (wouldn't be surprised if Palantir does this). Eventually, crypto finds it way towards a tangible asset that can be tied to somebody and it's just a matter of a paper trail.

Serious question, I thought BTC's only usefulness came from its usefulness in laundering money. Is this not true?

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#28

Post by cmrdporcupine »

Hydraulix9899 wrote: post #2

There's this misconception that bitcoin is private / "safe" for criminals. In reality, the block chain is public (and all of its transactions inside... that is how distributed ledger consensus is achieved among miners) and the on-ramps and off-ramps between fiat are all logged / tracked, especially Coinbase (since they are taking the "safe route" and playing by all of the rules with governments / regulators). Your la…

Sounds like it worked just great for one of the criminals...

From TFA "The FBI has not, however, been able to identify the hitman as yet. The reason is almost certainly because the hitman did not use a commercial service like Coinbase, which must comply with know-your-customer laws, for the Bitcoin transactions but instead relied on his own personal wallet—one that did not reveal any information about his identity."

Re: Man used Coinbase to pay hitman in Bitcoin for wife's murder, FBI says

#29

Post by strombofulous »

xgulfie wrote: post #26
twostorytower wrote: post #19

Bitcoin is a dream come true for the FBI/CIA. There are companies building sophisticated software to track the routing of shady payments through the blockchain (wouldn't be surprised if Palantir does this). Eventually, crypto finds it way towards a tangible asset that can be tied to somebody and it's just a matter of a paper trail.

Serious question, I thought BTC's only usefulness came from its usefulness in laundering money. Is this not true?

bitcoin works by distributing the entire history of all bitcoin transactions among a distributed pool of nodes. Anyone can look at any transaction at any time with only a small amount of effort.

there are services that will "mix" your coins with a bunch of other people's, but you can see all the coins that went into the service and the addresses they were all sent to so it's not foolproof.

I've heard that monero is a coin that can be used for laundering, but I've never looked into it so I can't say for sure

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