Europol Discusses Crypto Crimes with 16 Digital Exchanges

Europol, the European Union (EU) law enforcement agency, is meeting 16 leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the Hague this week to debate ways of preventing criminal abuse of digital coins as part of the 5th Europol Virtual Currencies Conference. The roundtable started on Tuesday and will continue three days with main focus on detecting the path of cryptocurrencies towards criminals in the EU.

The meeting will discuss “the abuse of virtual currencies for illegal activities”, and ways to “enhance the capabilities of law enforcement”, a Europol’s spokesperson told Financial Times. The main topic is “tracing and attribution” of digital coins and to counter crypto services that make easier for criminals to abuse digital coins for money laundering.

The Virtual Currencies Conference (VCC) is an annual forum where Europol meets crypto industry representatives for a direct discussion about digital coins and money laundering. The 5th conference is organized by EC3, the Europol’s Cybercrime Center.

This year's event is the biggest with more than 250 participants, including crypto wallets and payment processing companies, compared to 150 participants last year. Joint initiatives with private sector and cooperation on tracking the transactions are the main goals for the 5th VCC, EC3 announced.

“#Now welcoming participants to 5th #VirtualCurrencies Conference. The largest #lawenforcement #cryptocurrency event in #Europe +250 guests from #lawenforcement, prosecution & private sector,” EC3 tweeted on Tuesday.

The participants are not only from the EU but from around the world as some of the major cryptocurrency exchanges are placed outside of the Union.

“Hi Traders! The @Europol Virtual Currencies Conference starts today! It's fantastic to see all the major players in Cryptocurrency sharing their ideas on how to stop cyber crime,” the Nez Zealand-based Cryptopia virtual coin exchange tweeted.

Europol is the European Union agency that supports member states in the fight against various forms of organized crime, including terrorism, money laundering and organized frauds.

In February, director Rob Wainwrigh revealed that more than EUR 4 billion were laundered with cryptocurrencies, out of the EUR 114 billion of illicit proceeds in the EU.

Day 2 of the 5th #VirtualCurrencies Conference: Discussing case studies on crime affecting legitimate cryptocurrency users including #malware, #phishing and #DDoS attacks on #cryptocurrency services. pic.twitter.com/bjZyonUXdc

— EC3 (@EC3Europol) June 20, 2018

Europol and crypto-related activities

The 5th Virtual Currencies Conference comes several days after Europol announced the dismantling of one of the notorious European hacker groups, Rex Mundi, that used Bitcoin as a payment method for ransoms. Last week, Europol revealed that the last member of the group, a 25-year old coder of the Rex Mindi, was arrested in Thailand as a result of international police cooperation under Europol’s umbrella.

The agency’s operation against Rex Mundi started after the group attacked the computers of a British company last year and compromised a large number of customer data. The hackers wanted a daily ransom of EUR 210 000 that should be paid in Bitcoins.

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