“Blockchain is a Gold Mine For Us”

Officials of the Secret Service and REACT, two US agencies investigating illegal events on financial crimes and hacking, participated in the “Ask Me Anything – AMA” event on the popular social media platform Reddit. During the approximately 2-hour question-and-answer session, the San Francisco Office of the Secret Service and the Bay Area Enforcement Computer Team (REACT) often received questions from users about how they could hide their transactions from such agencies. Asking a government agency how to make transactions private also brought up a lot of funny messages and comments, but officials said the easiest way was to use cash.

In the session held under the crypto money sub-title of Reddit, the officials, who also received questions about the choice of the crypto field by fraudsters and thieves, said that the blockchain technology is a gold mine for them:

Blockchain technology is a happy area for us in terms of tracking money. We have managed to return crypto money to 17 people in the last 9 months in cases of fraud and theft.

Secret Service officers at the U.S. Treasury Department, who, apart from their duties to protect presidents and presidential candidates, also have the powers to investigate events related to money and financial crimes, also said they have a separate department dealing with cryptocurrencies. The officials, who stated that all of the new agents and officials who came to the San Francisco office had to read the Bitcoin whitepaper, also made a comparison about money laundering. Secret Service employees stated that the laundering value in cryptocurrencies is much less than in fiat currencies.

Secret Service released NFT collection last year

Secret Service officials also stated that they found many victims of cryptocurrency scams because they did not report to the agency. Stating that they identified many victims and victims on Reddit, the officials also informed that this person will get their funds back. During the question and answer session, it was also learned that the Secret Service agency released an NFT collection last year. “We are trying to learn about various digital assets and every aspect of them,” the authorities said.