Here's an example of FSB getting funds . There's more coverage in Polish, because one of the executives is now in jail in Poland.
<a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/criminal-case-against-failed-wex-212213740.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://finance.yahoo.com/news/criminal-case-against-failed-...</a><p>Similar stories played out with companies affiliated with Bitfinex IIRC, where people got arrested and connections to cartels and human trafficking were revealed.
I hope Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania don't continue down this path. I've looked at the graphs of their economic success over the past 3 decades with quite a bit of interest.<p>I'd love to see all of them break through to the level of my adoptive homeland of Finland, and perhaps even beyond (if we don't find a way to make ourselves more business friendly first, of course!). Tremendous potential in all 3 of these places. I'd love to visit Riga or Tallinn one of these days.
This has been going on before crypto. Between 2007-2015 some very wealthy Russians laundered more than €200 billion from Russia to tax havens around the world using Danske Bank's branch in Estonia.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_money_laundering_scandal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_money_laundering_s...</a>
The article only mentions how it benefits Russians, but omits the fact that almost any Ukrainian or Ru opposition donation page has crypto addresses on it. The money flows both ways, the way it was intended. Also, Russians laundered hundreds of billions through Baltic banks (Danske Bank, Swedbank etc) with oh so real AML officers.
Cayman Islands does this AML compliance officer requirement too, I pay out the ass for them (and so does every VC fund you fawn over)<p>These jurisdictions really just keep adding layers of obligatory professionals and it neither changes the reputation of the jurisdiction or helps a fundamentally flawed problem of trying to whitelist transactions accurately<p>I’m still of the predilection that states should just give up on trying to police money flows<p>It doesn't work in the US, Caymans, Estonia, anywhere!<p>Domestic gangs would always pass KYC, and foreign terrorism just simply isnt that expensive to always worry about funding them. Terrorism doesn't happen because nobody’s interested in flying planes into buildings. You don't need to encumber the GDP by 1% trying to prevent financing that, ostensibly.
They seem to be a hub of money laundering in general. Danske Bank and then Swedbank. I think the latter case may have been the biggest ever, or at least they got the biggest fine for it ever.
There are organised groups that will launder funds via Twitch tips. Another common pattern is to sell a digital good like an ebook.<p>Money laundering cannot possibly be stamped out. The best you can do is try and limit giant one-time affairs through a bank, but laundering money is extraordinarily easy, with crypto or not.
I am glad I never got involved. I know I shouldn’t ascribe a feeling to what is essentially some type of distributed self maintaining database (yes I know it is more than that) but there was always something that just felt off about that entire technology.
The whole current AML scene is very sad. Sanctions against Russia don't harm any of the Putin's friends who can figure out another way to get money across the border. Sanctions against Russia only harm ordinary Russians.
and before that the biggest money laundering <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_money_laundering_scandal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danske_Bank_money_laundering_s...</a> (kinda enabling Putin to become what he is)
> where over a billion euros have been laundered or defrauded<p>GDP size: $105 trillion<p>Percentage of the world GDP linked to criminal activities: 3% to 5% of the GDP (CIA official factbook).<p>We're talking $3 to $5 <i>TRILLION</i> linked to criminal activities.<p>Cryptocurrencies do not even register.<p>Highly convenient scapegoat though.<p>Crime, money laundering, fraud, ponzi, etc. all existed long before Satoshi created Bitcoin.<p>Back to the $3 to $5 trillion linked to crime: KYC/AML brings back about $12 billion per year.<p>A rounding error.
We're finding about this because Estonia has transparent government services and a tradition of investigative journalism. These days, though, every crypto company and plenty of scamsters of all sorts seem to be located in Dubai, and good luck finding any transparency or doing any investigations in the United Arab Emirates.
I know it sounds a bit crazy but what if the government hired people to investigate and arrest criminals instead of requiring private companies to do that? AML is a costly and ineffective security theater.