A cache containing thousands of important reports was released this week and it further proved that a large number of major banks simply chose to ignore their own problems and moved trillions of dollars around on behalf of some suspected criminals, corrupt governments, and terrorists.
The name of the report cache, FinCEN, comes from the fact that they were filed with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. It’s worth noting that it was a group of international journalists who brought this cache to light with over 2,100 suspicious activity reports, referring to over $2 trillion worth of transactions that took place between the years 1999 up until 2017, the New York Times suggests.
A number of huge banks were involved in these transactions and filed these reports after ignoring their own financial problems. Some of the names on the list are Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and HSBC. The funds these banks moved around were connected to some Taliban-linked companies, North Korean regime-linked groups, and even the organizer of a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund fraud.
When it comes to FinCEN, there are a lot of things worth explaining, especially concerning its efforts to regulate cryptocurrency. However, what’s even more important than that is the fact that the world needed this clear proof concerning Bitcoin not being a tool for money laundering or criminals, contrary to the common belief.
But let’s start with the beginning. Back in 2013, a Bitcoin Magazine article first connected BTC to money laundering and that was mostly due to its previous reputation related to bizarre transactions. One thing that prompted this was the fact that Bitcoin was the used currency for the biggest darknet market in the world, called Silk Road.
While nobody denies the fact that Bitcoin might still be a preferred currency for some rather dubious activities, like hiding financial transactions, it is also a lot less able to protect the privacy of those who use it, especially when compared to other cryptocurrencies. However, if these newly-released reports are any indication, even the world’s largest banks are involved in money laundering activities and they have nothing in common with Bitcoin.
We are absolutely certain that obscure darknet transactions and Bitcoin will always remain connected somehow but what was now revealed only proves that the cryptocurrency is not a tool for criminals or is not the main tool for criminals. When you have the world’s most important banks getting involved in such dubious business, blaming a cryptocurrency that is still considered fairly new and which not many people fully understand for facilitating illegal transactions is, without a doubt, wrong and ignorant.
