Bitcoin Used by Russian Spies to Influence US Presidential Elections
The US special counsel Robert Mueller has charged 12 Russian spies with interfering with the country’s presidential election in 2016, according to an indictment, which alleges that the Moscow intelligence officers relied mainly on Bitcoin during the whole process.
The accusation files, revealed by the US Justice Department at the end of last week, state that the spies hacked emails and stole personal data of about half of a million US voters with the goal of influencing the elections so that Donald Trump could win.
They also allege that the intelligence officers used cryptocurrency to buy servers, register domains and make payments for several other operations. Many of the transactions were handled by US firms, the indictment shows.
“To facilitate the purchase of infrastructure used in their hacking activity -- including hacking into the computers of US persons and entities involved in the 2016 US presidential election and releasing the stolen documents -- the defendants conspired to launder the equivalent of more than $95,000 through a web of transactions structured to capitalize on the perceived anonymity of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin,” the indictment reads.
The filing states that the 12 spies are members of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate, known as GRU. The officers are charged with stealing private data like usernames and passwords of Democrat volunteers, including of John Podesta, one of the close allies of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Besides, the spies hacked the computers of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
The conspirators supposedly mined Bitcoin to pay a Romanian firm for the domain “dcleaks.com”. This and other domains were used to release the leaked emails and documents from Democrats. Besides, the group purchased Bitcoin by using peer-to-peer exchanges, operating with other cryptocoins and using prepaid cards.
“The use of Bitcoin allowed the conspirators to avoid direct relationships with traditional financial institutions, allowing them to evade greater scrutiny of their identities and sources of funds,” the US Justice Department noted.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein revealed that President Donald Trump was briefed on this case a few days earlier and that he was aware of Friday’s actions. Trump has called Mueller's probe a “witch hunt”.
