Thanks to a joint operation that included Europol, Spanish Guardia Civil, Finnish authorities and the US homeland security, a criminal ring has been busted that operated by using bitcoin to launder drug money through a Finnish crypto exchange, according to an official statement released by Europol.

The joint effort led to a total arrest of 11 individuals related to the organized crime which laundered drug money from Spain to Colombia by using BTC and other cryptocurrencies. The drug dealers started out with contacting individuals and asking them to launder the money through hundreds of bank accounts. Later the criminals acquired credit cards which were linked to these bank accounts. When they traveled back to Colombia, those cards were used to withdraw ‘clean cash’ from the bank accounts through Colombian ATMs. It didn’t take long until the criminals realized that by using cryptocurrencies they could heavily reduce the risks of getting busted and make the process easier as well. The report states:

“Once the criminals realized that cash withdrawals and bank operations were easy to track, they changed their laundering methods and turned to cryptocurrencies, mainly bitcoin.”

The new process was the following: criminals had used a Finnish crypto exchange which was hasn’t been named yet. They converted their cash into BTC and the crypto asset was converted back to Colombian pesos. A grand total of 137 people were interrogated and the investigation showed that more than 8 million EUR cash had been washed trough using 174 bank accounts.Of course this is not what cryptocurrencies are meant for, however, Europol did not miss the chance to let us know that they are watching for illegal activities related to digital assets:

„With cryptocurrencies increasingly used to finance and carry out criminal activities, Europol will continue to coordinate across EU Member States and beyond, to effectively respond to this rising threat. Europol has organized specialized training courses to assist law enforcement officers in identifying the use of cryptocurrencies by organized crime networks.”