> DoJ investigation found.. [banking] business had been used to launder more than $650m between 2016 and 2021 from US fentanyl sales for Chinese crime groups and drug traffickers.
According to the official CIA "world factbook" or whatever that is called: an estimated 3% to 5% of the world's fucking entire GDP is linked to criminal activities.
Blockchains are cool in that they allow to follow the laundering (so it allows for nice blog entries with good looking graphs, which I do appreciate), as opposed to traditional banks where it's all opaque.
But the amount of money laundered using cryptocurrencies is a drop in the bucket compared to size of criminal activities ongoing in the world (btw criminal activities predates blockchain by centuries or millenia).
And don't get me started on the missing billions when "aid" is sent to this and that country. Be it Ukraine or Haiti or whatever: there are corrupt officials and individuals at every single step of the ladder.
My favorite is the US loading a 747 with 12 billions in bills of $100 USD to "help the reconstruction of Iraq" and officially 9 billions of those 12 billions have been "lost".
Yup. Lost. That's official stuff.
So the $200m of the Lazarus group, compared to $9 billion in $100 USD bills: cry me a river.