Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation has reportedly tracked Monero (XMR) transactions related to the criminal trial of Julius Aleksanteri Kivimäki, who is accused of hacking a private mental health company’s database and demanding a ransom in cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrency tracking for bank accounts in Kivimäki
Prosecutors in the case presented new evidence on January 22 that revealed a cryptocurrency trail leading to Kivimäki’s bank account. In October 2022, hackers reportedly demanded 40 bitcoins (about €450,000 at the time) from Vastaamo, a provider of psychotherapy services, to stop publishing the records of more than 33,000 patients.
Payment and conversion process
When the ransom was not paid in Bitcoin, Kivimäki targeted individual patients. The hackers received payments in Bitcoin, sent the funds to a non-KYC compliant exchange, then converted them to Monero and transferred them to a dedicated Monero wallet.
Monero’s privacy features
Monero is known for its strong privacy features, claiming it is “untraceable.” These features include Ring Confidential Transaction (RingCT), ring signatures, and stealth addresses. RingCT hides the origin of funds by mixing users’ transactions, while Ring Signature hides the identity of the sender within a group of possible senders. Stealth addresses allow you to create a one-time address for each transaction, making it difficult to link multiple transactions to the same recipient.
Legal Research on Privacy Coins
Privacy coins like Monero have come under legal scrutiny in various countries due to their potential to anonymize users and bypass identification procedures. In 2019, the French National Assembly’s Finance Committee proposed a ban on anonymous cryptocurrencies, including Monero. US authorities offered a bounty in 2020 to anyone who could crack privacy coins like Monero.
Previous research has shown that blockchain analytics can track transactions involving privacy coins even before 2017.