Europol: Monero, Zcash & Dash hinder our work

Monero, Zcash and Dash are Altcoins with a focus on preserving the anonymity of users. They pose a major problem for Europol investigators. In contrast to Bitcoin, it is not possible to follow the trail of money from the merchants to the customers of the online marketplaces in Darknet and elsewhere. However, according to security researchers, most transfers take place via Bitcoin in the grey area.

In a recently published annual report for 2017, the European police authority Europol complains about the increased use of certain old coins in the grey area. In the PDF document, Zcash and Monero even had their own paragraph dedicated to them. Monero was issued for the first time in 2014 and is now regarded as the preferred choice in the grey area. When in summer 2017 the illegal trading centres Hansa Market, LuL.to and AlphaBay were taken off the net by Europol, this was the test of example for the Monero. Despite all their efforts, the police have still not succeeded in tracing the payments of these marketplaces for e-books, drugs, forged passports or weapons. The policemen have to follow other tracks in their research.

The Monero protects users‘ privacy by default, which is not the news spy

In contrast to the Bitcoin, you cannot view the scam publicly as proven by onlinebetrug. Also nobody can get out the Wallet address of the senders or receivers. According to the security researcher Tom Robinson from the company Elliptic, most transactions are nevertheless carried out by criminals in Bitcoin. It may be due to the news spy convenience of the well-known procedures or to the fact that there are many more trading places that accept Bitcoin. The pseudo-anonymous BTC transfers, however, involve some risks, as most crypto portals require you to register with a copy of your identity card and deposit your current address. Many in Darknet believe that they are being clever with their Bitcoin payments, Europol employee Jarek Jacubcheck told colleagues at the Business Insider. But the truth is that they leave permanent traces that can be easily traced, Jacubcheck said. As we have already reported, there are attempts to link the wallet addresses with data from social networks, underground forums and Darknet marketplaces in order to establish connections with regard to the owners of the wallets.

This is not so easy with the Bitcoin secret

Since the coins are automatically mixed during dash, they are popular with many criminals despite the Bitcoin secret. Still others have their Bitcoin wallet mixed by a mixing service in order to remain unrecognised. However, this costs them 1 to 3% of their credit. Trading venues with Monero, Zcash and Dash in their portfolios are not very cooperative with official enquiries, which is not surprising. Tim Court of the Bitcoin secret said publicly that such trading venues actively obstruct investigators‘ work by steadfastly refusing to disclose any information about their clients. So it remains to be seen whether Monero & Co. will remain as secure for its owners as they are today. Whether the strong data protection is morally reprehensible, each user must decide for himself.