Russian authorities take down four illicit sites with $263M crypto proceeds

• The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs recently shut down four illicit carding websites in Russia with a significant amount of crypto proceeds.
• The three most dominant cryptocurrencies in the crypto proceeds of these platforms were Bitcoin(BTC), Ether(ETH), and Litecoin(LTC).
• Although Russia was in limelight for its unfavorable decision regarding the crypto industry, it might impose regulations on it and not ban it, 

Reportedly, four illicit Dark Web Sites have been taken down by the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs. The websites are said to make over $260 million in proceeds from cryptocurrencies earned from the sale of stolen credit cards. 

The four platforms are Trump’s Dump, Ferum Shop, UAS Store, and Sky-Fraud forum. These are known as carding websites, these illegal websites offer credit cards that are stolen. The buyers can purchase them via cryptocurrencies, premium gift cards, or luxury goods. 

Share of Holdings of these illicit websites:

– Advertisement –

Elliptic, the blockchain analysis provider disclosed the collective earnings of these four websites to be around digital assets worth $263 million from unlawful transactions. The three dominant cryptocurrencies in these earnings were Bitcoin(BTC), Ether(ETH), and Litecoin(LTC)

Ferum Shop since October 2013 to date, solely made around $256 million of BTC from stolen credit cards, which accounts for 17% of the illegal market. And since Ferum Shop has integrated sporadic use of payment processors, providing exact figures is a bit tough.

The UAS store comprised $3 million in proceeds from digital assets. The platform was a famous seller of stolen Remote Desktop Protocol(RDP) credentials. It solely made $862k in the Covid 19 pandemic.

Trump Dump made around $4.1 million since 2017. This one specialised in selling raw magnetic strip data from compromised cards or dumps. The platform as the name suggests used Donald Trump’s image for branding.

Which one of you is next? is the message left by the Russian authorities on the Sky-Fraud Forum. On this website, the criminals held discussions regarding money laundering tips and carding techniques. 

Earlier the Russian authorities took down the operations of UniCC and LuxSocks which were another carding website

The Russian lawmakers recently announced that they might not ban the asset class but they will impose regulations on it. And the country has some emerging local investors, hence this is good news for them. Regulations are lately hovering around the crypto industry. But it can’t be denied that countries are considering the asset class in some way or the other. 

ALSO READ: FANTOM Token Price Analysis: FTM token price is getting ready for big move