Teenagers reeking of drugs fill our bitcoin cashpoints with bundles of £50 notes
After police warn over money laundering, shopkeepers reveal...
THE extent to which Britain’s fastgrowing network of bitcoin cash machines is being exploited by drug gangs can be revealed today.
Shopkeepers have described to the Mail how teenagers ‘reeking of drugs’ deposit wads of £50 notes into their digital currency terminals.
Up to four in five of those using the new ATMs are suspected drug dealers, one said. Criminals can launder money – and bypass bank checks – by putting highdenomination notes into the machines to convert them into bitcoin. It can then be transferred across borders and withdrawn in any currency, and is hard to trace.
A day after Scotland Yard called for a crackdown, warning that criminal gangs are using the machines to launder their dirty cash, a Mail investigation found:
One shop that agreed to close to allow a customer to pay in £14,000;
A gaming bar where staff say that up to 60 per cent of ATM users are drug dealers;
Shopkeepers boasting the machines are easy money – they get a fee of up to £1,200 a month, or commission on each deposit.
A fast-growing web of bitcoin ATMs, owned by a range of operators, has sprung up across the UK from Penzance to Glasgow. There are now 98, with locations including a cannabis shop in Croydon, a vaping store in Tunbridge Wells, a fish and chip shop in Brighton and a food store in Derby. The machines, connected to a bitcoin exchange, are also used by speculators investing in the cryptocurrency, which has increased in value more than tenfold in a year.
Mahalingam Krishna, who owns G7 newsagents in West norwood, South London said: ‘It’s easy money for us. We get £200 a month just to have it sitting in the shop. We have had one since May and we get all sorts. Boys wearing hoodies, kids aged 17 or 18. They reek of drugs. I don’t know if they are criminals, they don’t like me to see what they are doing.’
Staff at Loading Bar in Dalston, East London, estimate that at least 60 per cent who use its bitcoin ATM, installed six months ago, are drug dealers.
‘At first it was about 80 per cent,’ said a male employee who did not want to be named. ‘The guys who are druggies will bring in massive amounts, a wad of £50 notes.’
Detectives from Scotland Yard’s elite Organised Crime Command say bitcoin is one of the biggest emerging obstacles to tackling major gangs.
Julian Dixon, CEO of Fortytwo Data, specialists in combating money laundering, said: ‘The UK is several steps behind the criminals and playing catch-up. Scare stories about the use of bitcoin on the Dark Web have been common since its inception. Why has is taken so long for the authorities to decide to act?’
Bitcoin emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
It is unregulated, hard to trace and exists only in cyberspace in the form of a numerical code.
It can be exchanged anonymously with anyone in the world at the click of a mouse. The bitcoin craze means its value has soared from around £750 at the start of the year to more than £ 8,200, making the currency worth £140billion – almost as much as the Coca-Cola company.
But as it is not tied to any assets in the real world and the value is driven purely by demand, experts fear the bitcoin bubble will burst.