Cryptocurrency as a way of financing terrorism. The work of the Ukrainian special services
Exchangers and Cold Wallets
According to the Security Service of Ukraine, cryptocurrency transfers to the electronic wallets of unknown individuals are one of the channels for financing the ‘L/DNR.’ If we decided to try our hand as a sponsor of terrorists, we would be surprised at how easy it is to remain unnoticed by law enforcement.
For example, to create an electronic wallet for purchasing Teather (considered one of the most anonymous cryptocurrencies), all one needs to do is download an app on a computer or mobile phone. During registration, there’s no need to enter a real name, phone number, or email.
Sending any amount to another user takes just seconds. All that’s required is the recipient’s ‘address’ — a long code that the program automatically generates for each user.
Caught Red-Handed
Law enforcement insists that complete anonymity when using cryptocurrencies is a common myth.
Private companies are developing more and more tools to track virtual transactions.
’For example, the British service Elliptic helps governments track terrorist financing through Bitcoin,’ explains lawyer Dmytro Nykyforov. ‘Their software searches for information on suspicious transactions, analyzes court registries across various countries, and then attempts to link them within the dark web (anonymous internet networks like Tor or I2P), looking for traces on marketplaces and crypto exchanges. The output is a visualized scheme of user interactions for law enforcement.’
Ukrainian law enforcement agencies have also learned to use such services. Using the specialized Chainalysis service, Ukrainian intelligence identified wallet owners, transaction amounts, and the cryptocurrency exchange used for transfers.
In this way, they identified a Ukrainian citizen, Dmytro Yatsyuk, born on June 2, 1981, who made a cryptocurrency transfer to wallets designated for providing material and financial support to the Russian armed forces and the occupation administration of the aggressor state. ‘It was revealed that on May 23, 2023, at 9:47 PM, Yatsyuk transferred 99.09 USDT to the cryptocurrency wallet ‘TFPP4KnLa7H3eaHSF7vFNz44bc7jcKdNy1’ (transaction hash - TXID: 0e51868886c375ab815ec3d74df4edfa850221824bf8c77b07ccfbbba9f72808),’ according to the intelligence report."
Suspicion
In an official statement, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported that D.R. Yatsyuk made a transfer equivalent to 3,623.58 hryvnias to support the occupying forces of the aggressor state—the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation—and illegal armed groups of the self-proclaimed terrorist organizations ‘Luhansk People’s Republic’ and ‘Donetsk People’s Republic.’ Their goal is to change the borders and territory of Ukraine, including through the creation and support of illegal state entities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, violating the order established by Articles 2 and 73 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Thus, Dmytro Rostyslavovych Yatsyuk is suspected of committing a criminal offense under Part 1 of Article 110-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, namely, financing actions aimed at changing the borders and territory of Ukraine in violation of the order established by the Constitution of Ukraine.
The intelligence agency states that there are now many ways to identify actions that directly finance terrorist organizations and trace their sponsors, so it is only a matter of time before justice reaches all of Ukraine’s traitors.
