bitcoin

A spam that hits so many triggers it's hard to know which one is the biggest draw for victims.

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This spam-scam is remarkable. It's as if the sender thinks that by throwing everything at the wall, something will stick. But for the even slightly alert, it fails before the target even opens it.

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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After a break, the return of e-mail sextortion threats

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It's been months since we last had a threat of this type. But where there is one cockroach, there are usually many so we might expect that another wave of such spam-scams is happening.

Bitcoin wallet: 1L6XxPRuLJdr6JCqw8dwNUm1wFLisrGREL

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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The get rich quick scheme being pumped on LinkedIn

It all looks so viable: Henry Golding, the star of the fantastically successful film "Crazy Rich Asians", in an interview with the very credible Singapore newspaper The Straits Times, says he's making shed loads of money in an automated trading scheme endorsed by, amongst others, Bill Gates. And it's floated around LinkedIn for a while. We took a look.

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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It's official: trading in virtual currencies in the USA is the same for tax purposes as trading in USD and other currencies.

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The USA's Internal Revenue Service has, albeit belatedly, joined its Treasury sibling, FinCEN, in concluding that there really is no material difference between using virtual currencies and USD or other currencies. In a notice issued this week, it's made clear: if you price and are paid for your goods or services in bitcoin or any other virtual currency, you are liable for trading profits in exactly the same way as if you priced them, and were paid, in fiat currencies.

CoNet Section:

Taxation

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World Money Laundering Report releases GlobalKYC - Suspicious Crypto Asset Accounts - a Crowd-Sourced approach

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The supposed anonymity of crypto-asset accounts, such as bitcoin wallets, depends on two things: first, the creation of accounts attached to fictitious or false identification information and the fact that there are so many that trying to identify one being used for criminal purposes is like trying to decide which drop in the ocean should be looked at first.

Today, World Money Laundering Report, part of The Anti Money Laundering Network announces the GlobalKYC Suspicious Crypto Asset Register, a crowd-sourced method of identifying those accounts that may be used by criminals for reasons of extortion.

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Don't talk balls: cryptocurrencies are not dead

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It's almost impossible to open a website or blog with even a peripheral interest in financial matters and not see a headline saying something like "The Death of Bitcoin." Total tosh. So are the click-bait headlines in the style of "is blockchain dead?"

This is why.

BIScom Subsection:

Cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets

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Bitcoin wallet address for fraudster

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The fraud is old hat. The bitcoin address is, presumably, valid and enforcement agencies may wish to track and attack it. And, of course, any financial institution which has records of it should identify it as a suspicious account.

1HQ7wGdA5G9qUtM8jyDt5obDv1x3vEvjCy

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime News

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This criminal has access to my personal data - and I don't know who has been hacked.

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We all get the scams telling us that a criminal has our data. Many of us get scams saying that the criminals have details of access to pornographic websites and, even, footage taken from cameras on our desktop or laptop machines. Usually, we are told that we are being blackmailed and ordered to pay a sum, via bitcoin, to a specified wallet, 1Lughwk11SAsz54wZJ3bpGbNqGfVanMWzk. This wallet should, obviously, be disabled with immediate effect.

CoNet Section:

IT & Communications

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Singapore's financial regulator warns of bitcoin investment fraud

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It takes something of a cheek to solicit investment in a fraudulent scheme and to publish a website with comments falsely attributed to the Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore who also happens to be the country's deputy prime minister. But as MAS has warned, that's exactly what someone is doing...

BIScom Subsection:

Cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets

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USA's Internet Crime Complaint Centre says these are commonly seen factors in on-line extortion

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The Internet Crime Complaint Centre (IC3) has seen a growing number of reports about extortion attempts received by both e-mail and postal mail which use specific information about the potential victim to add authenticity. While there are many variations in these extortion attempts, there is often something common to the approaches, IC3 says.

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This bitcoin account is collecting criminal funds

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This morning, I received, in one of my corporate mailboxes, a spam which is disturbing on several levels, none of which are relevant to the core arguments in this piece so I've added the text in a footnote for readers' information.

What is relevant, and not disturbing, is that it demands payment to a specific bitcoin account.

This is it: 1JXuMq6sbL95XnrcDEsrZTCvvRjB52RCAD.

Governments and others are focussed on the person behind the account. There is another way, says Nigel Morris-Cotterill

BIScom Subsection:

Cryptocurrencies and cryptoassets

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Another internet blackmailer and demands to pay via bitcoin.

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It is said that fraud is a cyclical business and that frauds come around every five to seven years. Today, it is common to see frauds coming round every few months. This one combines both with old-fashioned blackmail, internet abuse, insecurity through camera-equipped devices and crypto-currency all in one. Add in a (quite possibly fake) Russian connection and whoever crafted this had his finger on all kinds of buttons. DUE DILIGENCE INFORMATION: BTC account quoted - 16n8TKLoLKZiB2DCaWwpKFnWRPN7EW9EjT

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Crypto-Currencies - is China being reactionary or sensible?

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The grand-daddy of the current crop of electronic currencies is, of course, Bitcoin. In recent months, its value has appreciated exponentially until it reached more than 5,000 dollars. But it's just the most famous so-called "cryptocurrency" and now the technology is "in the wild," anyone with the necessary, apparently not very advanced, IT skills can make one. China says "enough is enough" and is taking steps to more or less outlaw cryptocurrencies or, at least, to make their use difficult. China has explained its reasoning - and it makes a huge amount of sense. The questions are whether the horse has already bolted, can access to cryptocurrencies outside China be banned and just how much use is it really for money laundering, a main plank of the Chinese objection.

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