Miserable Russian hackers find ways to launder money after sanctions

Russian hackers are in trouble because of a series of international sanctions

Recently, Russia has been affected by a series of sanctions targeting the banking sector. Most recently, the US and some European countries have excluded Russia from the SWIFT international payment system. SWIFT is currently used by more than 11,000 financial institutions in more than 200 countries worldwide. The sanctions crippled the usual “money laundering” channels used by Russian cybercriminals.

Not only that, Russia also continues to stop operating direct money transfer services such as Western Union and MoneyGram. Scammers and blackmailers often use these services to receive payments from victims without having to reveal their real identities. The shutdown of these services by Russian authorities has become a major blow to the country’s criminal circles.

Russian hackers are in trouble because of a series of international sanctions. Photo: Internet

Not stopping there, on April 5, the Russian network Hydra, whose users are mainly in Russia and neighboring countries, last year accounted for 80% of all crypto transactions related to the darknet market, has was seized by German authorities in coordination with US law enforcement and shut down. Authorities in Germany have seized servers and other infrastructure used by the multibillion-dollar network, along with a reserve of about $25 million in bitcoin.

On April 6, the US Department of the Treasury officially imposed sanctions on the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange, one of the most important platforms that Russian cybercriminals use to launder money. From there came a wave of sanctions against similar platforms starting in 2021.

On April 22, Binance – the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has deactivated the accounts of major customers in Russia. Russia is one of the top five Binance markets globally with around 10 million accounts, Russian citizens and people living in the country, as well as companies based there holding crypto worth more than 10,000 euros ($10,900), all will be prohibited from making new deposits or transactions.

With a series of international sanctions being introduced, Russian criminals are in a difficult situation, struggling to find new money laundering options to withdraw money or keep profits safe. and especially stolen cryptocurrency.

Looking for a new method

Currently, the Russian hacker community has switched to using the Chinese payment system, including Chinese banks and the Union Pay card system, according to analysts at Flashpoint. However, Union Pay is considering refusing to serve Russian users, so this option is not viable in the long run.

Therefore, a new money laundering group has turned to dirty money transfer routes through the banking system in some countries that do not impose sanctions on Russian banks such as Armenia, China, etc.

In addition, some researchers analyzing Russian criminals have turned to long-term approaches such as investing in gold or storing cryptocurrencies in cold wallets until the situation becomes easier. than.