UK Drug Dealers Used Memcoin to Launder Income
Date: 2025-04-23 Author: Oliver Abernathy Categories: IN WORLD
A former police officer named Carroll, who has 14 years of service behind him, reported uncovering a criminal scheme that he learned about from confidential sources. Although he did not reveal the name of the coin, Carroll said that the gang members intended to popularize their cryptocurrency through active advertising campaigns on social networks. Their plan was to create the illusion of growing interest in the token, thereby raising its price. They then planned to sell the asset at an inflated price in order to present the proceeds from drug trafficking as legitimate profits from the crypto project.
According to Carroll, the use of memcoins for such purposes will only increase. The reason for this is the availability of tools for creating tokens and the attractiveness of cryptocurrency for criminal structures. He noted that digital assets have long been in the arsenal of international criminal organizations such as Smart and TGR, which operate in different countries and use cryptocurrencies to launder money.
However, he admitted that this is the first time he has encountered such a scheme - when criminals create their own asset and artificially increase its value. This shows how quickly the methods of criminal use of cryptocurrencies are developing and becoming more complex.
Meanwhile, similar cases have already been recorded outside the UK. For example, in Brazil, law enforcement agencies in the state of Sao Paulo filed a petition to freeze assets worth more than 8.6 billion reais (approximately $1.5 billion) in the accounts of the fintech bank 4TBank. The Brazilian prosecutor's office suspects that this bank is completely controlled by the influential drug cartel First Capital Command, and can be used to launder criminal proceeds through cryptocurrency channels.
Experts warn that such schemes will become even more sophisticated as interest in digital assets grows and mechanisms for tracking them become more complex.
