All we have to go on so far is the unsealed indictment, which does not mention cryptocurrencies, and the statements of the prosecutor. Based on what we know so far though, here are our thoughts:
- Thankfully she got caught before she was able to move money to ISIS. This suggests that law enforcement has the tools necessary to deal with this sort of money laundering even when it involves cryptocurrency.
- The unsealed indictment doesn’t have enough facts in it to draw strong conclusions about how important Bitcoin actually was to the scheme. We know she bought it with fake credit cards and a bogus line of credit from a bank, but that’s about all.
- From the statement of the prosecutor, it looks like she still tried to use wire transfers and shell companies in order to get the money to ISIS. This may suggest that a simple bitcoin transfer didn’t work to accomplish her ends, and that the old ways (wire fraud) remain the best ways when it comes to evading sanctions.
We await further information.