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Comment by umvi | Hacker News Reader

Launder it through an MMO like EVE online

You're going to try to launder millions (maybe tens or hundreds of millions) of dollars through an MMO and think no one will notice? Good luck.

This isn't something I made up. Criminals have been using MMO's in-game currency to launder money for over a decade. The trick is to launder slowly over a long period of time. Very hard to catch.

I used Second Life (I believe, but may have been something else) years ago (a decade ago?) because it was one of the easiest ways to put money into anonymous paypal accounts (anonymous credit cards that get accepted by paypal weren't really a thing here back then). I bought crypto, used it to buy their in game currency, then cashed out their currency to the paypal account.

You pay a few percents of fees, and it's not "the NSA will not be able to find you", but it was more than good enough for my mildly paranoid ass.

yeah but then all the authorities would have to do is go ask the people at Eve online what Bitcoin address was used to pay

No, you pay another player Bitcoin for ISK, and then sell the ISK to another player for USD

Still traceable.

Authorities follow Bitcoin transactions and ask questions which points them right to you.

And if you do it all at an internet cafe in Bangkok from behind 7 proxies and a fake beard?

No, you give the other player the entire wallet, you don't actually do a transaction

Then the investigators go to that person, and they point them towards you.

Eve knows the source of the ISK.

This is what these investigators do all day... track money as people try to move it around. They are good at their jobs

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