Finnish authorities have tracked Monero transactions linked to the Vastamo hack.
Finland's National Bureau of Investigation has reportedly tracked Monero (XMR) transactions as part of its investigation into the criminal trial of Julius Alexandre Kivimäki. Kivimaki is accused of hacking the database of a private mental health organization and demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency.
According to local media reports, prosecutors released new evidence on January 22 showing a crypto trail leading to Kivimaki's bank account. In the year In October 2022, the hacker demanded 40 bitcoins (450,000 euros at the time) to unpublish the records of more than 33,000 patients from psychotherapy service provider Vastamo.
When the ransom was not paid, Kiwimaki continued to target individual patients. According to Finnish police, the hacker received payments in Bitcoin, sent the money to an exchange that did not follow Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines before converting it to Monero and transferring the money to a different Monero wallet.
A fun day in Finland. #answer pic.twitter.com/FupGQ9fWWE
— Joe Tidy (@joetidy) January 19, 2024
According to reports, the funds were sent to Binance, exchanged again for Bitcoin and moved to different wallets. Local officials are maintaining confidentiality and have not released any further details about their analysis of the chain.
Monero is known for its strong privacy features, claiming to be “inaccessible” on its official website. Its privacy-enhancing technologies include Ring Confidential Transactions (RingCT), Ring Signatures and Hidden Addresses.
Related: What is Monero (XMR): A Beginner's Guide
RINGCT scrambles users' transactions, hiding the true source of funds, while RingSignatures hide the sender's identity by presenting them as part of a group of senders.
Another key feature of Moneero is implicit addresses, which allow for the creation of a one-time address for each transaction, making it difficult to link multiple transactions to a single recipient.
In the year In March 2019, the head of the Finance Committee of France's National Assembly, Eric Worth, proposed banning anonymous cryptocurrencies, including Monero, by bypassing de-identification processes because of their ability to fully anonymize users.
US authorities have also taken a close look at Monero. In the year In 2020, the Internal Revenue Service offered a reward of up to $625,000 for anyone who cracked the elusive privacy coins.
Previous studies suggest that blockchain analytics can track transactions made in privacy coins, including activities prior to 2017.
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