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US Deputy Attorney General Rob Rosenstein announced Friday afternoon a series of bombshell indictments related to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US Presidential elections. The indictment claims the scheme was dependent on the cryptocurrency bitcoin.
It was those bitcoin transactions that apparently contributed to the hackers getting caught.
"To hide their connections to Russia and the Russian government, the Conspirators used false identities and made false statements about their identities," Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote in the indictment. "To further avoid detection, the Conspirators used a network of computers located across the world, including in the United States, and paid for this infrastructure using cryptocurrency."
The price of bitcoin did not appear to be affected by the news as it hovered around the $6200 mark.
The Russians conspired to launder somewhere around $95,000 through cryptocurrency transactions as a means of purchasing infrastructure the hackers used to conduct their campaign, Mueller alleged. The Russian officials did so to "capitalize on the perceived anonymity" of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.
"The use of bitcoin allowed the Conspirators to avoid direct relationships with traditional financial institutions, allowing them to evade greater scrutiny of their identities and sources of funds," Mueller wrote.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
