Environmental crimes are often hidden by 'flying money' laundering schemes

23 PaulHoule 4 6/27/2025, 2:01:50 PM news.mongabay.com ↗

Comments (4)

quantified · 2h ago
Crypto is similar in some respects to flying money. Is it easier or harder to trace transaction flow with crypto? I'm guessing that it's the exchange to/from cash that causes vulnerability to law enforcement and establishes traceability. But if a crypto exchange recognizes fish bladders and chemical stocks as exchanged currencies, that risk would be reduced (leaving the visibility on a public blockchain as a problem).
janalsncm · 1h ago
The article they link has some more info on the mechanism.

http://www.chinaknowledge.de/History/Terms/feiqian.html

Ultimately crypto is trying to solve the same problem, keeping track of transactions on a ledger. Different cryptocurrencies have different levels of anonymity. Monero is probably more private than bitcoin (not an expert).

But yeah to me it seems like they could’ve written the same article and replaced flying money with crypto and it’s the same problem. Can’t share info with Chinese cops because of national security but if you ask me 81k dead per year (plus funding Mexican cartels) is a national security issue too.

LorenPechtel · 11m ago
Yup. I think it's a fundamentally unsolvable problem without huge government intrusion into people's lives. Prohibiting transactions with willing buyers and willing sellers is extremely difficult.
01HNNWZ0MV43FF · 54m ago
Cash is good though