The American enforcement agency raised alarm over the use of Bitcoin in illegal activities, mainly in child exploitation and human trafficking.
Bitcoin & Crypto adoption rate has been surging rapidly with time. Adoption of this innovative technology is not limited to only the financial sector, instead many industrial companies use blockchain technology for better & stable data processing. Many companies use cryptocurrencies to provide cross-border payment services at very efficient costs.
In the latest, The U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) published a report on the surging adoption of Bitcoin & other cryptocurrencies in human trafficking-related activities.
The report noted that 95% of the reported cases of online child exploitation and human trafficking cases involved the use of cryptocurrencies.
In particular, between Jan 2020 to Dec 2021, such cases surged from 336 to 1,975, which is a very big concern over the surging adoption of cryptocurrencies.
As we know FinCen’s main role is to fight against the misuse of the financial system by illicit actors but they are failing to deal with the cryptocurrencies linked illicit actors.
However the majority of the cryptocurrencies are fully traceable & easy to catch the culprits, who use cryptocurrencies in their illegal activities, but these actors are wise enough. They use those cryptocurrencies which are untraceable, for example, Monero (XMR), Verge, Z Cash, etc.
It is strange to know that Bank Secrecy Act (BSA) reported that they received, 2,157 out of 2,157 reports referenced Bitcoin as the primary convertible virtual currency used for human trafficking and online child exploitation cases.
So far, FinCEN identified nearly 1,800 unique crypto wallet addresses which are deeply related to online child exploitation cases and human trafficking offences.
Because of the absence of crypto-focused laws & rules, the majority of the US enforcement agencies fail to fight perfectly against crypto-related illegal activities.
The FinCen body established a partnership with the Canadian financial intelligence unit’s “Project Protect” to fight against such cases.
In Oct 2023, this enforcement agency proposed a rule to enforce all the local crypto companies to follow “certain record keeping and reporting requirements” for transactions involving crypto mixers.
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