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OTC Brokers Laundering ‘Vast Sums’ for British Crime Syndicates

By Koos Couvée

For years, British crime syndicates have steadfastly relied on underground, unregulated banking networks, lax money services business and cash smuggling operations to move billions of pounds out of the United Kingdom annually. But the global proliferation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has given "international controller networks," also known as ICNs—sophisticated, cross-border money-laundering operations run by career criminals—a new avenue to move illicit value and settle transactions between otherwise disparate groups in different countries, all within minutes. According to the National Crime Agency, or NCA, the typology begins with "crypto couriers," lower-level operatives who, armed with USB sticks that they carry...

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