Cryptocurrencies are increasingly used by Mexican and Colombian cartels to launder millionaire sums from drug trafficking and other criminal activities, warned Thursday the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) of the UN.
“It is believed that, in Mexico alone, the Mexican cartels launder some 25,000 million dollars a year,” says the INCB, and stresses that the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels, the most powerful in the country, are the ones that most use virtual currencies.
The INCB presented its annual report in Vienna and Mexico City, in which it analyzes drug trafficking in the world and its impact both economically and on security and society.
“Both Mexican and Colombian organized criminal groups are increasing the use of virtual currencies due to the anonymity and speed of operations,” indicates the INCB report, citing conclusions from the US drug enforcement agency DEA.
Transactions are made for smaller amounts so as not to trigger the alarms of the control mechanisms put in place by Mexico in 2018, which force cryptocurrency platforms to report operations for more than 2,830 dollars.
“Criminals often divide illicit money into small amounts that they deposit into multiple bank accounts, a technique known as smurfing. They then use those accounts to make a series of online purchases of small amounts of bitcoin, that allows them to disguise the origin of the money and pay their associates in other parts of the world,” the document adds.
Criminal networks also launder profits from other illicit activities such as arms trafficking and people and sexual exploitation, said the INCB.
The entity also analyzes in its report how social networks are used to promote the use of hallucinogens and market them.
“Platforms offer new opportunities to buy controlled substances and glamorize negative behaviors,” he explains, recalling that young people, the age group with the highest consumption rates, are the main users of social networks.
Mexico has been facing a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking for 15 years, in the midst of which other crimes have grown, such as fuel theft and the smuggling of migrants trying to reach the United States.
More than 340,000 murders have been recorded in the country since December 2006, when the government launched a controversial anti-drug military operation, according to official figures that attribute most of the killings to organized crime.