Australia’s federal law enforcement agency has highlighted the criminal use of cryptocurrency as an “emerging threat” in the country but says it’s a continuous challenge to keep up the pace with criminals. A spokesperson for the Australian Federal Police (AFP) told Cointelegraph that there has been an “increase in the number of offenders using cryptocurrencies to facilitate illicit business and attempting to conceal the ownership of assets,” noting: “The criminal use of cryptocurrency is an emerging threat for law enforcement.” However, they admitted the biggest challenge for law enforcement is to “continually evolve” their “tools, techniques and legal frameworks” to …

Law enforcement in Australia is working to boost cryptocurrency expertise and trace crypto transactions by setting up a dedicated police group. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a new cryptocurrency unit to focus on monitoring crypto-related transactions, The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday. Stefan Jerga, the national manager of the AFP’s criminal asset confiscation command, said that the use of crypto in criminal activity had significantly increased since the AFP made its first crypto seizure in early 2018. In response to this, AFP decided to set up a dedicated crypto team in August, Jerga noted. The increased focus …

Major Indian crypto exchange CoinSwitch Kuber had five of its premises searched by anti-money laundering agents on Thursday over alleged violations of forex laws. According to an Aug. 25 report from Bloomberg, India’s Enforcement Directorate searched CoinSwitch Kuber’s offices as well as the residences of its directors and CEO Ashish Singhal. A source told the publication the crypto exchange is under suspicion of acquiring shares worth more than $250 million in contravention of forex laws, as well as being non-compliant with certain know-your-customer (KYC) requirements. The Directorate of Enforcement is a federal enforcement and intelligence agency operating under the Ministry …

A South Korean town near Seoul has been successfully operating a pilot program that allows police to seize crypto from the exchange accounts of individuals with delinquent traffic fines. Gunpo, a city of about 275,000 in the northwestern Gyeonggi province was selected by the national government to execute the pilot program in 2022 which an Aug. 16 report from the JoongBoo Ilbo news outlet stated was a way to collect delinquent funds in an “untact," or contactless fashion. The program appears to have been successful, at least in the first half of 2022, with Gunpo police achieving an 88% collection …

The saga of BitConnect, a major cryptocurrency scam scheme, is taking another twist as one of the BitConnect co-founders is now wanted by the Indian state police. Satish Kumbhani, an Indian national and the alleged founder of the crypto Ponzi scheme BitConnect, reportedly became subject to a new police investigation in India, The Indian Express reported on Wednesday. The Pune police, operating under the Indian state Maharashtra Police, launched a probe into Kumbhani after a Pune-based lawyer filed a complaint claiming that he lost about 220 Bitcoin (BTC), or $5.2 million, due to BitConnect. The complainant said his original investment …

Authorities in the Netherlands have arrested a developer that is suspected to be involved in money laundering through the crypto mixing service Tornado Cash. The Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), an agency in the Netherlands responsible for investigating financial crimes, officially announced on Friday an arrest of a 29-year-old man in Amsterdam. The man has allegedly been involved in facilitating criminal financial flows and money laundering through the decentralized Ethereum mixer Tornado Cash, the authority said. The FIOD pointed out that it doesn’t rule out multiple arrests in the case, noting that its Financial Advanced Cyber Team (FACT) launched …

Netherland-based Maastricht University (UM) is set to recover nearly €500,000 ($512,150) worth of Bitcoin (BTC) after the police authorities managed to solve the infamous ransomware attack in December 2019. In 2019, a ransomware hack targeted the said university and froze all its research data, emails and library resources. The hackers demanded €200,000 in BTC and the university, fearing losing critical research data, decided to pay the said amount . The Dutch Public Prosecution Service (DDPS) managed to track down one of the crypto wallets associated with the hack in 2020 to Ukraine and froze funds in the account valued at …

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), the chief tax authority in the United Kingdom, have seized three nonfungible tokens (NFTs) associated with a suspected tax evasion fraud. The tax watchdog claimed it was the first U.K. law enforcement agency to seize NFT. The NFT seizure came along with the arrest of three people who are suspected of evading taxes using various sophisticated means, reported BBC. The arrested suspects in the case reportedly used fake identities and created 250 fake ‘shell’ companies to evade £1.4 million ($1.8 million) in value-added taxes (VAT). HMRC obtained a court order to confiscate $6,765 (£5,000) worth …

In the world of digital finance, where the weapon of choice for a heist is a computer rather than a semi-automatic firearm, tracking down scams and frauds from across the world becomes a near-impossible feat for centralized police forces. However, in an interview with Cointelegraph, an anonymous cyber vigilante shares insights into how he went about tracking down a group of decentralized finance (DeFi) scammers responsible for the $25 million StableMagnet rug pull, coordinating with police authorities and eventually having the stolen money returned back to the investors. The StableMagnet platform lured unwary investors under the pretext of high returns …

Beijing’s crackdown on crypto continued with the start of the new year as Chinese police froze nearly 6 million yuan ($1 million) worth of crypto and arrested eight people involved with it. As per a report published in Nikkei Asia, the public security bureau of Chizhou unearthed a crypto rug pull fraud that could be worth 50 million yuan ($7.8 million). The police began an investigation after an investor lost 590,000 yuan worth of crypto in June last year. The trail of the inquiry led to eight people living in different provinces. The police also seized luxury cars, villas and …

Goel highlighted the various methods that are actively being used by fraudsters to dupe investors such as lucrative investment opportunities, illegitimate bank transfers and cryptocurrencies. Acknowledging the growth of Indian crypto users, Goel added: “They [fraudsters] ask you to share your cryptocurrency details. And once you put it in your wallet, then the money is taken away.” After simplifying the elaborate fraud in a sentence, Goel also highlighted that sixteen such cases have been registered involving cryptocurrencies. The Additional Commissioner of Police Shikha Goel warned Indian citizens about the rise in cybercrime in an event hosted by the city police …

Taiwan’s police administration has reportedly arrested 14 people for running a $5.41-million (150 million New Taiwan dollars) investment scam over the past year, involving more than 100 cryptocurrency investors. CIB investigator Kuo Yu-chih said that the scam was led by a local businessman named Chen, who ran the operation on social media platforms. Chen was also reportedly running Azure Crypto Co, a Taipei-based platform that offered various investment services, including cryptocurrency transactions. He explained: “Chen and his staff set up Web sites, and allegedly used photographs of pretty women to attract mainly male victims, many of whom were in retirement …