A former CIA official says that Crypto Texpionage is a major threat to the United States star-news.press/wp

Only last week, Reuters published investigation In Luke Pavan, a Canadian teenager, he was arrested in Poland in May 2024 after recognizing spy for Russian intelligence and receiving bitcoin payments from his treatment.

While encoding is often seen as a tool for ordinary criminals, government actors have benefited from them since their inception.

Veteran perspective: coding as a fixed threat

Hadjar, a former intelligence officer who has a 17 -year -old intelligence in the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA), confirms that instead of becoming a new global spy medium, Crypto was one for a long time.

“Perhaps around 2013 (or) 2014, I really started for intelligence agencies. All adults have begun to use it hard. So I think we are a decade away – we don’t watch it.

Hedger condemnation is fed through a direct experience using Bitcoin for intelligence and seeing how other actors of the state sponsored.

Looking at its inherent properties, the cryptocurrency is a natural occasion for these activities.

“It is more flammable for a more flammable process than Fiat coin, mostly because of its across border capacity. If it will take more than $ 10,000 through an airport at the international level, I risk standing up. But I can put a hundred million dollars on a cool storage portfolio on a combined thumb engine and walk in an airport without a problem.”

Despite the development of Bolockchain’s analyzes significantly since the Bitcoin invention, they are currently not currently advanced to break the state spying.

Is the human Intel key to break down the encryption cases?

In his analysis of various cases of global espionage, Heidegger stressed the importance of the human element in breaking some of these cases.

In the Pavan case, investigators had no starting point for their Blockchain analysis until Bavan handed himself. The main information he provided allowed them to follow the money course.

“In many of these cases, it was not as if someone sat down and Blockchain analysis there and said:” Oh, see, there is this evil activity that happens here. A person, such a child, said: “Hey, I walk myself, I am talking to the policemen, and I visited them towards Blockchain first.”

Once Pavan referred to the investigators in the right direction, they found a 600 million dollar umbrella wallet where payments arose.

“But on the contrary, they still cannot actually attribute $ 600 million to your money. So I think he works very well as someone indicates and says:” This bowl there is involved in something bad. “But it is very difficult to only look at Blockchain and say that there is something bad there.”

Meanwhile, some details in the Pavan Heidger case made some operational capabilities of these Russian actors.

Neglect the calculated Russia

The Pavan case attracted a great audit of security experts and analysts. Many recruits were distinguished by unintended espionage, such as Pavan, as they are not trainers and amateurs, which means that Russia has acted from neglect or despair.

For Hedger, the use of a teenager was “immoral”, and the details of the case also indicated that the actions of Russia that seem indifferent, unlike the common belief, calculated and intelligent.

Pavan has received very small bitcoin transfers through a telegram for his strength. The minimum was especially given that it grew up from a box of more than $ 600 million.

Although Pavan has been recruited as a spy, he did not give a few amazing security, much less than intelligence work.

These details are likely to indicate that Russian intelligence knows that Pavan was not fit for this position. After all, he turned himself under the influence of alcohol and in a weak mental state.

Since Pavan was amateurs, Russian intelligence did not waste the most advanced tools in their toolbox.

“We know that the Russians can wash the encryption properly if they want it. The best techniques to protect someone reserved to those with great value, and that we trust that this technique is not exposed in our play book, as Heidegger said that the information will be very mired. They were right.”

While the Pavan case lit up the calculated approach to Russia in the neglected spying, it appeared simultaneously a blatant fact about global preparation.

How much is the United States?

According to Hedger, the United States is very backward in treating encryption spy threats.

“After 10 to 15 years, it was necessary to change now 10 years ago. And at the present time, this problem is very huge. I don’t think people understand its size (” he said.

For him, the Iurii Gugenin case was the only one in the United States, where investigators have effectively and comprehensively from the Blockchain with the traditional financial investigation techniques to collect a $ 530 million spy plan. It was an exception to the base.

“At the present time, I have friends in the application of the law, and they will tell you, quote,” We just pick up the idiots. “If the person is smart, it is because there is a leakage in the organization.

Multiple factors contribute to the United States’ inability to keep up with it.

The need for new experience

For Hedger, there is a huge gap in knowledge between criminal money laundering and investigators who specialize in money laundering.

“If you take a person to combat money laundering, they are unlikely to be able to launder themselves at all,” he told Beincrypto.

According to him, the only solution to this problem is for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to work with previous money laundering who worked using encryption.

“I think we have not yet turned into the type of people who rented us on the law enforcement aspect to catch up with the type of people who are invented on the washing side,” he said, adding, “If (criminals) wash money through NFTS, I think it will take many investigators to wrap them around what is going on around him.

This idea is not new for law enforcement agencies. They often used secret informants to gain intelligence in other operations, such as drugs, organized crime, or anti -terrorism.

However, this is not the only issue that US intelligence leadership must address to compensate for lost time.

The arrogance of reduction

Heidegger criticizes the arrogance of law enforcement and their unhelpful tendency to alleviate the imbalance of those involved in the coded currency in money laundering as “stupid”.

He said: “When we classify the opposition as these non -sophisticated primitive human beings and underestimate them, of course, we will not note that the most advanced moves they make because it creates a blind, cognitive point.”

After all, these are entities with abundant resources at their disposal.

“They are billions of dollars in a monthly organizations that can employ the best help in the world to fix its problems like any big company. It is definitely doing it when it comes to washing the encrypted currency.”

Part of this issue is attributed to a separation of information between law enforcement and law enforcement agencies.

While intelligence agencies began tracking the cryptocurrency in early inventing Bitcoin in 2008, the law has recently begun to connect Monday.

“There are a lot of fireplace tubes in the intelligence community or law enforcement. We are not talking to each other well, and often we do not agree very well. So intelligence agencies started using this, but it was not as if they were notifying the law enforcement of what is going on. So I think the application of the law did not actually appear until the game until the Silk Road, perhaps.”

The best communication between the various agencies that fight the same battles will be decisive.

Will the US efforts rise to this occasion?

Since his retirement from the CIA two years ago, Heidegger has called for a shift in how to deal with American law with spy cases related to encryption. He has not yet seen the necessary changes.

He concluded by saying: “(The matter) will take a lot of cooperation, in my opinion, is not present at the present time.”

The escalation of global tensions will inevitably support an increase in espionage. It is important, that the role of encoded currency in these activities is still an increased and growing factor.

This threat raises a decisive issue about whether anti -spy efforts will prove that they are sufficient to meet these increasing threats.