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Jamaican police: human traffickers hide tracks in crypto space

15 October 2017 21:00, UTC

Jamaican authorities fight human traffickers almost as long and as fiercely as Mexican authorities fight drug traffickers. Once this country was under close observation by international organizations, as it didn’t pay required attention to the problem, but these days are long gone.

Recently, on a conference in New Kingston dedicated to elimination of money laundering and terrorism financing, the representatives of the country’s law enforcement told about their tactics on blocking illicit finances human traffickers use. As Deputy Superintendent of Police Carl Berry said about the criminals they have to fight:

“They are asking for payment in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a new factor which creates problems for law enforcers.”

However, he immediately stressed that his organization has managed to discover a way to “hit them in their pocketbook” even if they use cryptocurrency. Jamaican police might know about the recently invented blockchain mempool scan - if implemented, it greatly helps not only to find the wallets of criminals, but also deanonymize them, thus turning their fondness of cryptocurrency against them.