Speaking at the digital-asset industry conference that was held in New York, an agent of the federal bureau of investigations revealed that the agency was investigating 130 crypto-related cases. This highlights the prevalent use of cryptocurrencies among criminals.

According to Kyle Armstrong, these crypto-related cases that are “threat tagged” to digital currencies comprise of crimes at that range from human trafficking, kidnapping, ransomware attacks and illicit drug sales.

Armstrong who is FBI’s head of Virtual currency initiative was speaking at the crypto Evolved conference yesterday and he adds that “There are thousands of cases in the Bureau, so it’s a small silver at this point.” He adds the FBI has noticed an increase in the number of crimes facilitated by crypto payments.

Amstrong says the dark web is a popular destination for many criminal with 10% of global drug users making purchases there. The drugs are paid for in cryptocurrencies. One popular drug on the dark web is opioid which has come to the attention of the FBI.

Extortion schemes are also on the rise according to the agent. The FBI has seen an increase in such schemes along the southwest border that are tied to cryptocurrencies.

He adds that the agency has a neutral stand on cryptocurrencies and he goes on to list a number of pros and cons with one of them being the ease of tracing digital currencies compared to fiat due to the distributed ledger technology that supports them, however, the anonymity of the transactions can be an obstacle to legal investigations.

Cryptocurrencies are popular on the dark web with the likes of Bitcoin, Litecoin and Monero being the most popular cryptos used to pay for different crimes.

A recent research by Recorded future found out that Litecoin was on its way to overtake Bitcoin as the most popular currency of the dark web due to lower transaction costs and fewer delays compared to BTC.