Fentanyl ‘precursors’ made $32m in crypto last year, report says
Analysts at Elliptic estimate over 140 unique crypto addresses have been involved in the global fentanyl trade. Fentanyl precursor suppliers received over $32 million worth of crypto over the past few years as the synthetic opioid epidemic continues in the U.S. According to data from Elliptic, around 80 individual clusters featuring 144 unique crypto addresses have been involved in the exportation of fentanyl precursors to major Mexican drug cartels such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación. Although crypto is not the only payment method in the chain, Elliptic found that suppliers are open for payments on the Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and TRON (TRX) blockchains — mainly for Tether (USDT) transactions — as well as one Monero (XMR) address. Crypto payments for fentanyl precursor suppliers | Source: Elliptic You might also like: U.S. drug regulator mistakenly sent $55k to scammer However, USDT is not the dominant asset used in the scheme as...