Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) organized the third Virtual Currencies Conference on 14 and 15 July at its headquarters in The Hague, which brought together over 90 experts from various regions of the world.

The two-day conference aimed to strengthen the fight against the abuse of virtual currencies for criminal transactions and money laundering. In addition, it also offered opportunities for closer cooperation and new partnerships to prevent and fight cybercrime and money laundering as well as facilitate asset recovery.

In attendance were representatives from law enforcement authorities, in particular from EU Member States, several US law enforcement agencies, the Swiss Police Cybercrime Division and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Furthermore, leading experts from several commercial and non-for-profit organisations actively involved in facilitating the lawful use of virtual currencies also took part.

Experts shared their insights into criminal trends and the latest techniques used by illegal entities to hide their financial tracks and cash out criminal proceeds using bitcoins and other digital currencies. The latest cutting-edge technology solutions for tracing blockchain transactions for criminal investigations were presented. Best practices and law enforcement techniques were also shared through concrete case examples.

“Whereas Bitcoins and comparable products were seen as major threats for security and justice just a few years ago, the traceability of transactions is nowadays used as an instrument to investigate crimes and prosecute the perpetrators”, Erik Barnett, representative of US DHS Homeland Security Investigations in Brussels and co-chair of the conference, said.

In the future, it is expected that EC3 and its partners will further this cooperation and sharing of expertise through the continuation of this series of annual virtual currencies conferences and EC3’s online collaboration platform for experts in this domain.