While scams are not uncommon in the financial markets, the cryptocurrency industry seems to be making headlines lately. In the United States, the financial authorities have been keeping an eye on crypto trading and investing activities. In fact, they had an alarming update for the industry. FinCEN

The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has report About $ 5.2 billion worth of bitcoin transactions are linked to ransomware. The analysis enables FinCEN to record the flow of ransomware payments in Bitcoin in order to identify the exchanges and services that ransomware actors have laundered their earnings with.

The data includes 2,184 suspicious transaction reports (SARs – documents that financial institutions and their business partners must submit to FinCEN in the event of suspected fraud), money laundering or fraud) filed between January 1, 2011 and June 30, 2021. It identified 177 convertible ones Crypto wallet addresses used in ransomware operations with variables from the ransomware body.

There are 68 active ransomware variants that are also flagged by FinCEN, with the most common being REvil / Sodinokibi, Conti, DarkSide, Avaddon and Phobos.

According to the data, FinCEN reported $ 590 million in SARs related to ransomware, up 42% from 2020.

“FinCEN has identified $ 590 million in ransomware-related SARs, up 42% from a total of $ 416 million for 2020 as a whole. If current trends continue, SARs filed in 2021 are expected to be higher Ransomware-related transaction value than the SAR courts filed in the last 10 years combined, which would represent an ongoing trend towards a significant year-over-year increase in reported ransomware activity. “

Ransomware-related transactions and SARs, 2011 through June 2021 |Source: FinCen report

This report follows a recent ban imposed by the US Treasury Department on those who were in no way involved in the SUEX exchange on allegations of ransom laundering for criminals. According to the analysis, 40% of the exchange’s transaction history is related to illegal actors.

In addition to Bitcoin, Monero is another cryptocurrency mentioned in the FinCEN report. It is labeled as an anonymity enhancing cryptocurrency that has gained popularity due to its high level of privacy and very difficult traceability.

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