Tricky crime thriller: cops bust crypto gangsters through money launderers
Europol has supported a major operation by European investigative authorities against two money laundering networks working for cryptocurrency fraudsters.
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Several money laundering organizations working for another criminal organization specializing in cryptocurrency fraud kept European law enforcement agencies on their toes for years. Europol has now reported a successful raid as part of a large-scale operation led by Italian and Portuguese investigative units. Law enforcement authorities from Germany in the form of the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Hessian police, from Austria, France, Romania, Spain and Switzerland as well as the EU judicial authority Eurojust were also involved in the previous investigation.
On May 21 and 27, law enforcement officers carried out several raids in France, Italy and Romania, Europol reported on Friday. "Eleven people were arrested, including the mastermind of the money laundering scheme." The law enforcement authorities carried out 15 house searches and confiscated several electronic devices, jewelry and cryptocurrency assets.
According to Europol, the organized crime group behind the investigations carried out classic rip-off operations, targeting millionaires who wanted to invest money or sell real estate. As a result, the investigators discovered that the gangsters outsourced the money laundering that took place in this context to two other criminal networks. These in turn had recruited people to receive money from third parties into their bank account and transfer it to another account or withdraw it in cash and hand it over to third parties in return for a commission.
Two years needed to cut the Gordian knot
The main fraudsters lacked "the technical know-how" to launder their profits of over 10 million euros, explains the EU Police Office. "They therefore delegated part of the criminal proceedings to external service providers." This "crime-as-a-service" business model made them even more dangerous "as all their needs could be covered by financial exchanges from other criminal actors".
According to Europol, it took the police forces involved two years to get behind the system, as it was structured like a labyrinth. The main criminals were members of families who originally came from the Balkans but mostly lived in France. However, tracing of the crypto deals carried out by investigators and supported by Europol revealed that two money laundering rings, spanning multiple nationalities and geographical locations, were linked to the main group.
The core perpetrators "contacted the victims, arranged a meeting in luxury restaurants or hotels and instructed them to download apps to manage cryptocurrencies," Europol explains. Once the victims had installed the application, the criminals are said to have used "sophisticated technical tools" to "take control of the crypto wallets". It was only when the payments had already been made via these e-wallets that the victims discovered that all their funds had "disappeared". As the suspects were making huge profits from their activities, the investigators tracked them down via an entirely new trail – that of the money couriers.
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