Drug cartels in Mexico used Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and other top crypto assets to purchase key ingredients for making the lethal synthetic opioid fentanyl, according to a new report from a US regulator.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) says cartels purchase fentanyl precursor chemicals, pill presses, die molds and other manufacturing equipment from Chinese companies using crypto and a variety of other methods.FinCEN is an agency at the U.S. Department of the Treasury that polices money laundering and terrorism financing.In addition to BTC and ETH, the cartels also reportedly transact with the top stablecoin USDT and the privacy coin Monero (XMR), among other crypto assets.
FinCEN says the drug-smuggling organizations will send crypto to people affiliated with Chinese suppliers or to secondary money transmitters with hosted wallets at virtual asset service providers.
What do you think of this news, do you think it is true? or it is simply propaganda by regulators against Bitcoin, and therefore other shitcoins such as Ethereum, Monero and USDT
Anyway, if this is true, it is surely only a tiny percentage of the money used to acquire fentanyl or the ingredients to produce it, we already know that most money laundering is done with fiat money.