Australian state police sets up crypto division to trace transactions
Cryptocurrency News
Modified Date:- Published Date:-Categories: Cryptocurrency
Australian statepolice sets up crypto division to trace transactions
Law enforcementin Australia is working to boost cryptocurrency expertiseand trace crypto transactions by setting up a dedicated policegroup. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has established a newcryptocurrency unit to focus on monitoring crypto-related transactions,The Australian Financial Review reported on Monday.
StefanJerga, the national manager of the AFP’s criminal asset confiscation command,said that the use of crypto in criminal activity hadsignificantly increased since the AFP made its first crypto seizure in early2018. In response , AFP decided to set up a dedicated crypto teamin August, Jerga noted.
Theincreased focus on illicit crypto transactions comes amid AFPseizing a lot more criminal assets than the authority had originally expected.Thatit reached its goal of seizing $600 million from financial crimes two yearsahead of schedule. The target was originally set by the AFP-led Criminal AssetsConfiscation Taskforce and was expected to be reached by 2024.
SinceFebruary 2020, the AFP has seized $380 million in residential and commercialproperty, $200 million in cash and bank accounts, and $35 million in cars,boats, aircraft, artworks, luxury items and cryptocurrencies. Jerga noted that cryptoseizures were small compared to “traditional” criminalassets like property and cash, but the additional focus is expected to providemore insights.
Contrary topopular belief, which supposes that Bitcoin (BTC) is anonymous, Bitcointransactions are not anonymous. Instead, they are publicly trackable throughblockchain explorers. While it’s technically possible to run an anonymous BTCwallet, it is becoming increasingly difficult to conduct BTC transactionsanonymously as transactions are quite often associated with users’ Know YourCustomer data.
Crypto news, AFP, BTC transaction, Criminal assets, Crypto team, Crypto transactions, Cryptocurrencies