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Drug dealers busted by US authorities were relying on Bitcoin for anonymity


There has been increased crackdown globally on illicit uses of Bitcoin over the last few years. But it seems that has not deterred one of the virtual currency’s earliest adopters — the “dark web users” — from using it to buy and sell illegal things online. The recently concluded year-long ‘undercover operation’ of the US Department of Justice against narcotic vendors found that most of them were using Bitcoin as means of financial transactions. Some were even found to be mining Bitcoin, as a secondary business. The US authorities have seized 2,000 BTC (approximately $12 million at the time of…

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