$5.1 Billion. That's the largest criminal fine in the history of France and it went against none other than UBS. A Swiss BANK. Why did UBS have to pay out that much? For money laundering. The very thing that regulators are concerned bitcoin does all by itself. It is estimated that roughly $2 trillion in fiat currencies are laundered each and every year, BUT only a fraction(0.125%) is attributed to bitcoin over the previous 10 years. Say what? Oh, and UBS has not been the only money laundering bank. So, since banks are the real culprits in criminal activity, and bitcoin transactions are easy to track, why are regulators so focused on bitcoin? Good question. Read more in depth below.
(Bill Taylor/Fintek Capital)
"USD $2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) are laundered every year through fiat currency and only a fraction (0.125%) of this amount, has been allegedly laundered through bitcoin in past 10 years. It is astonishing how bitcoin has been associated to launder money despite its close-to-zero figure.
UBS, one of Swiss banking giant was slapped by a $5.1 billion in French tax trial. A Paris court charged the bank for facilitating and helping its wealthy French clients to launder and hide billions of euros to evade tax. The court ruling follows an investigation, lasting almost 8 years. Initially, the bank was fined 3.7 billion euros by the judges but additional 800 million euros were added to compensate the French government for the damages caused by UBS.
Money laundering deals in hiding illegal acquired money, through a complex process of transactions, to make it hard for anyone to track the trail. It is very surprising how a decentralized currency, with transparent immutable public ledger (blockchain), that can easily be tracked is associated with money laundering and why laundering fiat currency, that has a facade of tedious checks, make it really hard for authorities in tracking the money trail to catch wrongdoers..."
Full Story at Blockpublisher.com