Over a year Feds ran a bitcoin-laundering sting
Operation Dark Gold targeted dark web drug dealers, providing cash in exchange for contaminate cryptocurrency. More than forty alleged dark-web drug dealers have been arrested as part of a sweeping federal effort represented by the Department of Justice as “the first nationwide undercover operation targeting dark web vendors.” The core of the operation was an online money-laundering business seized by agents from homeland security Investigations and operated as a sting for over a year. By providing cash for bitcoin, HSI agents were ready to establish specific drug dealers, ultimately tracing more than $20 million in drug-linked cryptocurrency transactions. “For the past year, undercover agents are providing money-laundering services to those dark web vendors, specifically those involved in narcotics trafficking,” said HSI special agent in charge Angel Melendez, in a news conference earlier today. Melendez led the operation from new york. The hijacked money-laundering service was of...