By Andrew Young-
A UK company has been linked to the laundering of 650,000 stolen bitcoins worth £4.5bn, a BBC Radio 4 investigation has found.
The coins were taken by hackers from Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt Gox has left tens of thousands of customers out of pocket.
The exchange claimed to be operated by a British company called Always Efficient LLP.
Always Efficient’s registered office is in east London, but the address is shared by several other firms, some of which are thought to be involved in money laundering.
The FBI has charged a Russian national with laundering the stolen bitcoins.Mark Karpeles, the operator of Mt Gox has embarrassingly apologized to investors, and assured them he is fully co-operating with the investigation.
Mt Gox matched up those who wanted to buy the crypto-currency with dollars, pounds and other international denominations with those wanting to sell bitcoins, and handled an estimated 70% of the world’s Bitcoin trade.
They crooks systematically pilfered users’ accounts to cover their tracks from Mt Gox operators for years.
In 2014, the site’s chief executive, Mark Karpeles discovered hundreds of thousands of coins were missing.
The site collapsed after customers were unable to withdraw funds.
Speaking for the first time about the collapse to BBC Radio 4’s File on Four programme, Mr Karpeles said: “It felt like… when you fall from a building and you see the ground getting closer, and you feel like you are about to die.”
He said the site had rapidly grown beyond his expectations.
The FBI have said BTC-e was a hub for cyber-crime and helped to launder money from hacks, including ransomware attacks.
The exchange claimed to be operated by a British company called Always Efficient LLP.
Always Efficient’s registered office is in east London, but the address is shared by several other firms, some of which are thought to be involved in money laundering.
Duncan Hames, of anti-corruption group Transparency International, said it’s likely to be a shell company.
“People laundering money will set up a network of companies to create layers between the original crime and their attempts to then integrate the proceeds of their crime into the economy,” he said.
“They simply enable a series of transactions to take place to create this distance and to obscure the trail of the proceeds of crime.”