And it's not the only cryptocurrency exchange startup at risk. Because in this spy movie plot, there is no agent 007: at the moment there is no Italian or European regulation that can stop the possible laundering of mafia gangs through bitcoins. «We cannot exclude that someone linked to mafia associations has purchased ours utility token (a voucher to use the startup's services in the future)», explains an Eidoo spokesperson, «but it would have been risky and stupid to do it with Eidoo because there are easier foreign sites, fast and impersonal to achieve that goal".
Eidoo's complaint is confirmed by reality. The 'Ndrangheta clans not only know what bitcoins are but they are ahead of all the other criminal organizations in the world. This is confirmed by the maxi operation "European 'ndrangheta connection", also called “Pollino” of December of 2018 which led to the arrest of more 90 people involved in international drug trafficking and money laundering between Italy, Netherlands, Belgium and Brazil. According to the national anti-mafia and anti-terrorism prosecutor, Federico Cafiero de Raho, the 'Ndrangheta clans of Locri wanted to pay for the shipment of cocaine purchased in Brazil with bitcoins. And the deal fell through only because Brazilian drug traffickers didn't know how to handle this transaction. Two days later the president of the Anti-Mafia commission also confirmed it, Nicola Morra a Studio24, RaiNews program: «Mafiosi have become professionals at using technologies such as bitcoin for criminal purposes».
Partly due to the difficulty in understanding the phenomenon, partly because it is constantly evolving, States are struggling to understand how to regulate the world of blockchain. Only the Finma, the Swiss authority that controls the markets, issued the first rules to govern the phenomenon, introducing in February 2018, the obligation of the KYC procedure (Know your customer) to be able to buy bitcoins: including telephone number and identity card code. Too little, too late, the English would say, because it does not exclude the risk of nominees. Not to mention that most ICOs to finance cryptocurrency startups were made at the height of the blockchain bubble, between 2017 and the beginning of 2018.
«The world of blockchain today is like that of the internet in 2005: a Wild West where users and regulators still have to understand the potential and risks", clarifies the Eidoo spokesperson. «It took us twenty years to protect our data from improper use on the Internet. I don't know how many days a month my colleagues and I spend explaining to the Swiss legislator, European and Italian how to regulate this market. We want to do business, it is in our interest to be able to do it in the most transparent way because in this world reputation is everything, but nothing has been done yet because the system is complex to understand".

The system is complex for lawmakers, but not for the 'Ndrangheta who have long understood how bitcoins work, first created in 2009. Already in 2014 il Gafi (International Financial Action Group) in a report it warned of the risks of virtual currencies on the legal economy: «Bitcoins are the wave of the future for payment systems and provide a powerful new tool for criminals, terrorists, financiers and tax evaders. And they allow them to circulate and store illicit funds, beyond the reach of the law". Everything revolves around the anonymity of those who give real money in exchange for virtual ones. A concrete example of what trading in cryptocurrencies means is offered by the portal Localbitcoins, where «people from all over the world can exchange their local currencies for bitcoins». Here, users of the site directly publish "advertisements with exchange rates and payment methods for purchases or sales". The system is simple: «Reply to the ads – we still read on the portal – and agree to meet the person to purchase bitcoin online». a system, so, which potentially guarantees total anonymity.
Why “virtual currencies” they are «digital representations of value, used on a voluntary basis as a means of exchange for the purchase of goods and services, not issued by central banks or public authorities, they do not constitute legal tender, nor are they comparable to electronic money. Easy transferability, electronic storage and negotiation, virtual currencies allow the exchange of wealth on the network between subjects who are not easily identifiable and who can operate in different countries, including those that do not ensure effective judicial or police cooperation or are lacking in terms of anti-money laundering legislation on both a preventive and repressive level". Translated: the mafias follow the same philosophy with which bitcoin was born: decenter. Agreements are made via Telegram chats, untraceable, with many frontmen willing to invest a few thousand euros so as not to arouse suspicion in virtual currency and then change them into other cryptocurrencies by exploiting the flaws of foreign exchange sites, and finally convert back into dollars or euros depending on where you want to launder the money.
It's no coincidence that, according to what was reported in the latest report of theBank of Italy's financial intelligence unit, In the 2017 have been registered further 200 suspicious reports relating to the use of cryptocurrencies (600 in recent years), behind which in some cases were hidden «connections with online extortion, scams, pyramid schemes, which also triggered significant investigative activities", in others the use of cryptocurrencies is part of complex operations involving the use of public funds, probable links with organized crime or connections with tax havens".

As often happens, The 'Ndrangheta was the first to understand the criminal appeal of innovative tools. To remove all doubts it is Louis Bonaventure, former Crotone boss of the Vrenna-Bonaventura family, today repentant and key collaborator over the years of ben 14 anti-mafia prosecutors. «I didn't even know how to turn on the computer at the time», explains to Linkiesta, «but we were very attentive to the evolution of the web, especially the one submerged up to cryptocurrencies. I had specialized people already in the 2000s, IT technicians who did a lot of research on new ways of recycling, of purchasing and paying for narcotics". The 'Ndrangheta, so, since long before the cryptocurrency phenomenon exploded, he invested by funding technicians «who were not 'Ndrangheta supporters, but who collaborated with us knowing who they were working for". And results had already been collected at the beginning of the 2000s, so much so that «since then payments to the cartels were made in encrypted form via the web. And the same was true for illegal betting.".
A bond, the one between gaming and virtual currencies, on which the anti-mafia commission also placed strong emphasis in its latest report, underlining how there is "an increasingly growing use" of cryptocurrencies in "online betting, or in so-called virtual casinos". Different and worrying, on the other hand, These are the reports «that demonstrate how in our country too, virtual currencies are used to fund gaming accounts opened with providers, currently not attributable to regular dealers, who also accept bets in Italy". In short, the 'Ndrangheta was somehow ahead of its time.
"Unfortunately", Bonaventura explains further, «it is thought that the 'ndrangheta is still coppola and lupara, but it hasn't been for decades. Let alone with the new generations of mafiosi: they are all graduates and up to date with technological developments. You don't become a boss because you're a killer. You become a boss if you are capable of being a killer when you have to, but above all if you are capable of thinking and making money without having problems". And so too camorra: according to the investigators, a concrete signal of this route comes from the fact that, according to Uif data, Campania appears to be one of the regions most affected by suspicious reports together with those of the North. And it is no coincidence that the prosecutor of the DDA of Naples, Giuseppe Borrelli, he has repeatedly emphasized i links between Camorra and cryptocurrencies: «It is impossible to identify the authors of the investments. It is a sector open to money laundering and reinvestment of illicit capital", he said in a recent interview.
Given the complexity of the phenomenon, the investigators' goal is to create a specialized network on a global level. Last year, not by chance, a meeting was held in Basel with Europol and our Dia to create «an international network of experts engaged in the sector of combating money laundering through the use of virtual currency», which follows the «Global Conference on Virtual Currencies», held in Qatar in 2017. A fundamental commitment in the fight not only against the mafias, but also of international terrorism which manages to finance itself through fake non-profit organisations, the complex system of money transfers e, in recent years, through «crowdfunding platforms and the use of virtual currencies», as Bankitalia still states in its reports. Il 26 June 2017 the European Commission has published a document relating to the «assessment of the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing conducted at a supranational level», which indicated "significant risk" in the field of virtual currencies. This document led to the 19 June 2018 to the fifth anti-money laundering directive of the European Union which aims, among other things, to greater attention regarding «the risks associated with prepaid cards and virtual currencies».