The Spanish Civil Guard, the Tributary Agency and the Austrian Police, were able to dismantle an organization in charge of producing and distributing New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). The interesting fact about this operation is that the police discovered that the organization was using Bitcoin, IOTA and XLM.

Police Dismantles Criminal Organization Commercializing Drugs

The world of cryptocurrencies has its dark side as well. This time, the news arrives from Spain and Austria. An organization producing and commercializing drugs in several European countries has been dismantled.

The investigation about this case started in 2015 when a suspicious package is found in the German city of Hof. The shipping was made from a post office located in Ogijares, Southern Spain. Indeed, an important number of packages has been detected which were sent to more than 100 countries in different continents. Most of them had various illegal substances.

The organization operated in Spain since 2012 and had laboratories in Amsterdam which used products from China to elaborate the drugs. From the laboratory, the organization designed and produced the substances that were later sold for virtual currencies.

Most of the customers of this band came from specialized websites where they received an invitation with a link to the marketplace, generally located in the DeepWeb. After it, the user was able to buy the desired drugs paying with cryptocurrencies.

In this case, the band used Lumen (XLM), IOTA, and Bitcoin (BTC). Other criminal organizations use other virtual currencies in order to hide transactions and avoid being tracked.

It was possible to impound over 509 BTC (4.500.000 €), 137.000 € in IOTA tokens, and €30.000 € in Lumen. This has been the most important operation related to virtual currencies in Spain and one of the biggest in Europe and all over the world. Other bank accounts have been analyzed owning more than 2.000.000 €.

Indeed, several countries decided to start regulating cryptocurrencies due to the fact that they allow individuals to be hidden while processing transactions. Spain has been asking for international or regional regulations with the intention to control virtual currencies. Regulatory agencies and governments are worried about them because they help criminals gather funds and launder money.