Theft of cryptocurrencies from exchanges soared in the first half of this year to three times the level seen for the whole of 2017, leading to a three-fold increase in associated money laundering, according to a report from U.S.-based cybersecurity firm CipherTrace released on Tuesday.
The report, which looks at the global anti-money laundering market, showed that in the first six months of the year a total of $761 million was stolen from digital currency exchanges, compared with about $266 million for the whole of 2017.
The losses could rise to 1.5 billion this year, estimated CipherTrace, which is launching a software to help exchanges and hedge funds that use or trade cryptocurrencies comply with anti-money laundering laws.
“Stolen cryptocurrencies are three times bigger this year than last year so the trend is obviously not our friend here,” Dave Jevans, chief executive officer of CipherTrace, told Reuters in an interview.
Jevans is also the chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a global organization that aims to help solve cybercrime.
He added that stolen virtual currencies end up being laundered to help criminals hide their true identities and avoid arrest, which has resulted in a three-fold rise in money laundering of cryptocurrencies.
The most recent theft from a cryptocurrency exchange was the $32 million in digital currencies stolen from South Korean exchange Bithumb.
Source: Reuters
