French police have shut down a massive botnet that has been used for Monero (XMR) cryptojacking. Cryptojacking backed by “massive firepower” BBC News reported the development on Aug. 27. According to the police, the botnet was distributed by sending virus-laden emails with offers for erotic pictures or fast cash, and further propogated through infected USB drives. The virus, called Retadup, ultimately infected 850,000 computers in over 100 countries — thus creating a massive botnet. The chief of C3N — the French police’s cybercrime unit — Jean-Dominique Nollet spoke on France Inter radio about the power of a botnet this size, …

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is looking into Long Island Iced Tea’s (LTEA) shift to blockchain for evidence of insider trading and securities fraud. They are now requesting access to Whatsapp messages that may prove it. FBI wants to use a warrant from another case to gain access to encrypted messages According to a search warrant request, revealed by business news outlet Quartz on July 25, the FBI is seeking to expand a warrant from a different case in order to gain access to communications for their investigation into the former iced tea company. These communications allegedly …

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called for former users of the QuadrigaCX cryptocurrency exchange to provide information in an official announcement published on June 3. Earlier this year, QuadrigaCX had filed for creditor protection after the unexpected death of its founder left more than $145 million in funds apparently inaccessible. The FBI announcement asks people who lost funds due to the insolvency of the exchange in question to fill in a questionnaire asking about various details concerning their experience with the company and personal data: “If you have questions or concerns about your QuadrigaCX account, or if …

Israeli police and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have arrested at least two men and reported others in a takedown of a bitcoin-enabled dark web listings site, the Israeli police force announced in two official tweets on May 7. The police revealed that a cross-border investigation successfully traced several suspects who allegedly founded and administered a darknet site — identified as Deep Dot Web in local media reports — which was reportedly a resource for finding illegal dark web marketplaces. Such listed sites hawk illicit goods, such as drugs, weapons, or stolen credit cards, the police alleged. …

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has outlined what it believes to be the consistent threads running through fraudulent initial coin offering (ICO) schemes. The Bureau’s perspective was shared in an interview with Netherlands-based financial news site the Paypers on Feb. 19. According to the FBI, the key strategies of scam offerings include misrepresentations of their directors’ professional experience, an engineered false impression of how much traction the ICO has garnered in the industry, and unrealistic promises of prospective returns on tokens: “Like any investment product, rates of return can never be guaranteed and if it sounds too …

Law enforcement requests sent to Switzerland-based cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift rose 175 percent in the second half of 2018, according to a new Compliance Transparency report published by the exchange Jan. 18. In a blog post accompanying the report, Shapeshift outlines that it typically receives requests from law enforcement agencies for data including crypto addresses (in or out of the Shapeshift system), transaction IDs, identity information (names, emails, IP addresses), cryptocurrency or crypto asset information and more. ShapeShift emphasizes that in most cases it is not informed of the details of the investigation or probe for which the data is being …

The CEO of cryptocurrency firm AriseBank was arrested by the FBI Nov. 28 on charges of defrauding hundreds of investors out of over $4 million. The news was reported in a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas, published on the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)’s website Nov. 28. The arrested CEO, 30-year old Jared Rice, Sr., was previously the subject of a civil action filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s Fort Worth regional office in February, and was indicted on three counts of securities fraud and three counts of wire fraud …

FBI agent Kyle Armstrong said the Bureau has 130 ongoing crypto-related cases, with dark web drug sales a particular concern, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, June 27. Speaking at the Crypto Evolved conference in New York on Wednesday, the supervisory special agent said the number represented “a small sliver,” of the FBI’s activities, which number “thousands of cases.” The agency has nonetheless noticed an increase in illegal activity facilitated by cryptocurrency payments, he said. The 130 “threat tagged” files related to crypto span a gamut of crimes, including human trafficking, kidnapping, ransomware attacks and illicit drug sales. This latter has become a …

The beleaguered Russian cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e has kept its promise to relaunch the website…sort of. The domain http://btc-e.nz was active today, though not accessible to users in some parts of the world, notably the US, due to regulations. The site had promised to reimburse clients via tradable tokens (BTCT) for any losses they had incurred due to the seizure of the domain by the FBI. The domain was seized after the arrest of Alexander Vinnik in Greece in July on charges of money laundering, specifically, the laundering of the stolen Mt. Gox Bitcoins. The reboot of the site comes with …

According to the FBI IC3 report, they’ve received around 2600 cybercrime complaints including ransomware-related issues. The annual review of cybersecurity threats coming from the law enforcement agency’s, Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), outlines a range of statistics including number of submission complaints received regarding the ransomware. It also includes a breakdown per state. Increasing Bitcoin-related crimes Ransomware is type of a malicious tool that infects one's personal computer and encrypts its data disabling the user from navigating files such as the user's documents. It stops you from using your computer and holds your PC files as “ransom”. A payment is …

Hillary Clinton has not followed in Rand Paul's footsteps to accept bitcoin donations; BTCGAW.com is accused of fraud and intimidation; Filipino start-up Satoshi Citadel moves to consolidate its domestic position in the BTC market and more top news stories for April 13. Hilary Clinton won't be accepting bitcoin for her US$2.5 billion American election bid In contrast to her Republican rival Rand Paul, election hopeful Hillary Clinton will not be accepting bitcoin donations to her election war chest. With estimates to the cost of campaigning being placed as high as US$2.5 billion, accepting funds in any form may appear desirable, …

As we posted in October, the FBI closed the old site in the beginning of month and arrested its author and the owner - 29 -year-old Ross William Ulbricht, also known as "Dread Pirate Roberts". The old Silk Road worked since 2011. Because of the complexity system of registration, that ensured customers anonymity, it could not "light up” to the security services. However, the illegal goods are delivered to customers by mail in discrete packages. In addition to that, the investigators have information that in March Ulbricht ordered one of the members to make a contract killing. As information given …