> Seems like he could have done more to distance himself.
On a value system with an inherently public ledger that eventually has to hit a fiat off ramp with KYC/AML requirements? Nah. Everyone has quality opsec until they don't, and the record of your criminal activity is immutable and highly durable.
You can just sell the bitcoin for monero, then sell the monero for btc.
also, as time goes on, the proportion of btc that are "dirty" approaches 1, so these chainalysis strategies become less effective, assuming you aren't stupid enough to do some criminal act then cash out at a kyc exchange the next day from the same wallet
But are there any exchanges that swap btc for monero or eth that don’t have KYC requirements? Seems like it’d need to be off-chain somewhat, unlike uniswap.
Not unless those actors running those non-KYC exchanges are well hidden away from US extradition. Anybody who doesn't have KYC requirements in this space are risking serious prison time. People don't know it yet but the guys running Tether are going to go away for a long time. What they are doing is far worse than Liberty Reserve and Arthur still has 16 year left in his sentencing.
Morgan and Ilya appear to be the original hackers as well so on top of the money laundering sentencing which is around 10~20 years, they now have to deal with the hacking charge which appears to be a separate trial.
Morgan and Ilya aren't the only ones involved and the rest of the guys will eventually appear on DOJ website.
As far as I understand buyer and seller still have exchange information for the transaction to happen. The moment the buyer tries to use the stolen bitcoin he will have the police knocking on his door to find out where he got them from. The seller basically ends up completely at the mercy of the buyers security, with the added bonus that bisq doesn't enforce a completed transaction, so the buyer might just disappear once the goods changed hands without ever paying.
There are plenty that'd swap bitcoin (BTC) for litecoin (LTC) without KYC despite the fact that LTC can now do private transactions via MWEB. As networks integrate private Tx support, breaking the visible chain is going to be getting easier and easier.
"also, as time goes on, the proportion of btc that are "dirty" approaches 1"
I don't follow what you're saying here. Nothing stops something from being dirty multiple times, does it? So nobody might care that it could be traced back to something sketchy 5 years ago, if more immediately it's traced back to last month's crime.
Suppose he deposited it into AlphaBay and then withdrew from AlphaBay, and FBI didn't seize AlphaBay's logs. Where is the criminal immutable durable record now? There is no proof of connection between incoming and outgoing coins. Same principle with mixers.
On a value system with an inherently public ledger that eventually has to hit a fiat off ramp with KYC/AML requirements? Nah. Everyone has quality opsec until they don't, and the record of your criminal activity is immutable and highly durable.