A man in New York has been charged with running a cash-to-Bitcoin money laundering scheme in New York. Among other things, the case also shows the negative bias of law enforcement to crypto.
Money laundering via bitcoin
According to a recent Bloomberg report, a 42-year-old man named Thomas Spieker has been indicted for allegedly running a “cash-to-Bitcoin” money laundering operation in New York.
The man was supposedly bragging openly on social media about his doings, convincing his clients publicly that they could stay off the radar. Spieker has been searching on Google for various means to launder money through Bitcoin while also bragging to friends that his customers include people who run credit card scams, and one of them was a ketamine dealer.
Spieker’s clients have also been charged with a range of crimes, including operating an illegal drug market on the dark web.
Alvin Bragg – Manhattan District Attorney – said in a statement that the case “shows us how new technologies like cryptocurrencies can become key drivers of a wide range of criminal activity that can easily span across the globe.”
As claimed, this sprawling international money laundering network has helped drug traffickers, an organized crime ring and con artists to conceal their criminal activities and channel their earnings around the world.
Let’s… Back off a Bit
While it’s an undeniable fact that Bitcoin, amongst other cryptocurrencies, can be used for illicit activities, the above statement of DA Bragg seems to be a bit far-fetched. First of all, the entire operation was reportedly worth $2.3 million, which, albeit a lot for an ordinary person, doesn’t bode as a massive sum in the criminal world.
Speaking of money laundering, let’s take a step back and maybe see how functional financial institutions have been repeatedly proven to harbor money for convicted felons, drug lords, murderers and and so on.
A couple of years ago, we reported that a document leak suggested that major banks facilitated over $2 trillion in dirty money over a span of multitude years. If that’s ‘old news,’ let’s look at something more recent.
In February This year, documents claimed that Credit Suisse managed thousands of accounts belonging to suspected criminals. Of course, this remains to be proven, but the mere fact that there is an ongoing investigation should set off the necessary alarms.
But sure, “this sprawling web of international money laundering helped drug traffickers, an organized crime ring, and scammers hide their criminal activity,” as if legacy institutions haven’t been accused of doing this for years.
