Hi everyone,
A couple of days ago we noticed some suspicious transfers to CampBX, and reported those to our bank as well as Dwolla. After talking to bank fraud investigators today, seems like there is a well orchestrated, large-scale bank fraud underway. This includes very convincing fake passports and utility bills used to open bank accounts and Dwolla accounts, and transferring money to Bitcoin companies. Bank customers who have been hacked are spread all over geographically: MA, CA, TN, NYC, and WI.
The old-fashioned practice of processing bank+Dwolla transactions manually mostly saved CampBX: We have lost $2.6K and prevented a loss of $9.8K so far. I don't have email IDs for newer exchanges so sending out this open heads-up on the forum. I believe BitInstant does manual processing, so their damage may be limited, but exchanges like Mt.Gox that do automatic processing of Dwolla may be at higher risk. (Unless the fraudsters are selling their coins on Mt.Gox - in that case they will make a nice profit).
Keyur
So, in talking to the bank investigator, did you get the impression that theft was the operation? I ask because it looks rather like a money laundering set up, and that's been a big feature of bitcoin for some time now, IMO it may possibly be what bitcoin is best used for.
I mostly observe the speculative side, and it seems to me that there has been a lot of ping-pong volume lately with price movement staying in a fairly narrow range. I'm unconvinced that the volume is related to any success bitcoin may be having as an above-ground payment system.
Money laundering is costly and lucrative. Back in the 1990s just about every life insurance company in the world was involved in laundering South American drug money via something called single premium life. To the point, customers were willing to surrender 50% or more of their premium spent on an SPL policy to the insurance company for the cleansing benefit they provided. Entities like Cayman Islands banks and such couldn't handle the volume of money involved, hence the involvement of the insurers.
So, this could be pretty significant in impact. Bitcoin stands on a three-legged stool, contraband trade, speculation, and money laundering. Pull out one of those legs and flows could change significantly.