Organized crime groups of Japan rapidly embracing cryptocurrencies for money laundering and other illegal activities due to the anonymity offered by digital assets. Local authorities have been virtually unable to resist it, because in different jurisdictions in relation to cryptocurrencies, different rules apply (any of such rules do not).
The investigation carried out by the Japanese weekly edition of the Mainichi Shimbun, showed that starting in 2016, held a series of transactions involving a Chinese citizen and members of Japanese organized criminal group.
Journalists quoted a senior official from the Agency for financial services authority (FSA):
Japan cannot deal with problem alone. To combat money laundering are insufficient limits of trading operations internal transfers or enhance the monitoring. It would be better if the countries Big twenty have taken the same steps to prevent criminal activity.
The report said the transaction between a Chinese national and his Japanese counterparts. These people each month meet in a bar in Tokyo and exchanged information on digital currencies from blogs and social networks for a few.
Journalists of the Mainichi Shimbun say that during one of these encounters, the Chinese citizen said that “while there were no problems,” and gave the partners a USB drive that contains information about all the transactions money laundering using zcash for, Dash and Monero.
A file containing information about transactions starting in June of 2016, shows that the capital of the group is nearly 30 billion yen ($274 million) after laundering. The latter transactions are February 2018 and account for a total of 130 million yen ($1.19 million). Judging by the words of one of the members of the Japanese group, the decline is due to the recent turmoil in the cryptocurrency markets and the reluctance of groups to draw attention to himself.
After exchanging information, the group went into the apartment building next to the bar — their “headquarters”. There the gang members, mostly engineers and students range in age from 20 to 30 years, working on computers, doing the conversion of the money into bitcoin and Ethereum at the local exchanges.
One of the gang members said:
Such a database we are located around Tokyo. Most importantly — keep [stock] exchange funds in small amounts.
He also said that all the equipment belongs to the gang, and she’s hired staff.
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