Researchers Find New Way For Criminals To Launder Money Using Bitcoin

Criminals could use “Exclusive mining” to pass off their money laundering as Bitcoin mining income…

In brief

Exclusive mining could be used to launder Bitcoin.

It works by only allowing certain miners to process transaction fees.

It could also be used to start a whole industry around exclusive mining.

Researchers at the Blockchain Research Lab in Hamburg have outlined a new way to launder money on the blockchain: “Exclusive mining.”

Here’s how exclusive mining works, according to the paper by Dr. Elias Strehle of the Blockchain Research Lab and Lennar Ante of the University of Hamburg, published on Friday:

Someone places a transaction through a private channel and gives a single miner, or mining pool, the exclusive right to confirm that transaction and earn cryptocurrency as a reward. These are added to the blockchain, just like regular transactions.

This is different from what usually happens: if someone makes a Bitcoin transfer, everyone on the network can take a shot at mining it to earn their reward of Bitcoin.

Strehle told Decrypt that he is not the first to come up with the concept, but that his research is the first time it has been described in an academic paper.

How could exclusive mining be used by criminals?

So, how can the technology, as the paper mentions, be used for “camouflaging wealth transfers as transaction costs to evade taxes or launder money”?

Imagine that you’re a darknet drug baron and you need to launder your millions of Bitcoin. You send some Bitcoin to an exclusive miner - that you control - and get that miner to charge an absurdly high transaction fee.

Then the exclusive miner takes the Bitcoin they received as a reward for processing this expensive transaction to a cryptocurrency exchange and swaps it for fiat currency. It looks legitimate since it’s income earned from Bitcoin mining. Then the exclusive miner gives the fiat currency to the mafia boss.

And the money trail disappears.

The researchers say that exclusive mining is pretty difficult to detect and can’t easily be solved—it is here to stay.

But is it likely to be used by money launderers?

https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/researchers-find-new-way-criminals-launder-money-using-bitcoin

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/how-anti-israel-media-in-mideast-launders-rumors-about-uae-israel-641269

NC Attorney General Reacts After Allegations Louis DeJoy Pressured Employees For GOP Donations

Former employees of United States Postal Service chief Louis DeJoy say he pressured them to make political donations. The businessman rewarded workers with bonuses that reimbursed and rewarded them, according to a new report.

Five former employees of DeJoy’s New Breed Logistics told The Washington Post that they were told to make donations and attend fundraisers for Republican politicians. Two others, both familiar with the company’s finances, said DeJoy arranged for bonuses to be made for anyone who donated, which is illegal.

“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican Party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” retiree David Young, who was the longtime director of human resources at New Breed, said. “When we got our bonuses, let’s just say they were bigger, they exceeded expectations — and that covered the tax and everything else.”

A spokesperson said DeJoy “believes that he has always followed campaign fundraising laws and regulations.”

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein released a statement shortly after the report was published Sunday.

“It is against the law to directly or indirectly reimburse someone for a political contribution,” Stein said. “Any credible allegations of such actions merit investigation by the appropriate state and federal authorities. Beyond this, it would be inappropriate for me as Attorney General to comment on any specific matter at this time.”

New Breed Logistics was eventually bought by XPO Logistics, in which DeJoy currently has a $30 million stake. The New York Times reported last week that the USPS is paying XPO much more since DeJoy was instated as top boss.

https://www.ibtimes.com/nc-attorney-general-reacts-after-allegations-louis-dejoy-pressured-employees-gop-3041110

>>10551609

China needs technology and Israel can provide it - here's how

Levi-Lati sat down with the Post to discuss the growing Israel-China tech relationship, Chinese investment in Israeli start-ups, and challenges facing Israeli companies doing business with China.

Any Israeli company that wants to go global will have to penetrate China, Tehila Levi-Lati, partner and head of the China and East Asia practice at ZAG/Sullivan International Law Firm recently told The Jerusalem Post.

Levi-Lati recently sat down with the Post to discuss the growing Israel-China tech relationship, Chinese investment in Israeli start-ups, and the challenges facing Israeli companies doing business with China.

ZAG/Sullivan is a unique international law firm with offices in Tel Aviv, Boston, New York, Washington and London, as well as a practice in China. The firm is a powerhouse when it comes to advising hi-tech and life sciences start-ups doing business in Israel, the US and China.

“We started our activity in China 17 years ago, when the business relationship between Israel and China wasn’t so clear, but even then we saw the major potential in the economic partnership between the two countries – one that today is quite clear,” Levi-Lati said. “There are more and more Israeli companies doing business in China, and vice versa as well, with Chinese investing in Israeli companies.”

As such, the firm is ideally situated to help Israeli start-ups and businesses break into the hard-to-penetrate Chinese market as well as secure Chinese investment for Israeli companies.

According to Levi-Lati, a decade ago the relationship was mostly one-directional, with Israeli companies trying to enter the Chinese market, so that money was only going into China via foreign direct investment.

“Today, the world is different and, with the launch of China’s Go Global reform, we’ve seen money coming out of China, with Chinese companies investing in Israel and bringing back Israeli tech to China,” she said.

Still, she added, there are a lot of limitations and restrictions for Israeli companies working within China.

“In 2016, the Chinese tightened regulation, making it more difficult to do outbound investment; but China needs new technology, and so they began forming joint ventures – the new trend between Israel and China.”

According to Levi-Lati, joint ventures are a means for China to attract Israeli companies – the Chinese bring the money, and the Israeli companies bring the technology.

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/the-growing-israel-china-tech-relationship-595969

>>10551657

that is what I was thinking

ROBERT MAXWELL