PUBLIC WARNING

The following case studies are real life examples of the ways criminals have used bitcoin across the globe.

As a warning, you may find some of the illicit activity described below alarming.

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

OVERVIEW

About Bitcoin

The Bitcoin network is the world's largest and most secure computer network. 100% of global Bitcoin node operators are unregulated. As a result, no single government, bank, or corporation can control it.

Furthermore, the network's native token, bitcoin, is entirely permissionless. It is impossible to stop criminals from using it because of the aforementioned decentralized network. While most "bitcoiners" use this native token as an alternative money, due to its limited supply and savings value, many use it for illicit purposes.

We are hard at work highlighting high profile, international cases so the public is aware of the many ways criminals use this network.

CASE STUDIES

High Profile Bitcoin Criminals

Each of the following individuals has used bitcoin, promoted it, or built tools for it. Several have been jailed for their activities. One died in custody. Learn to recognize the signs.

Roya Mahboob

At large

  • Founding the Afghan Citadel Software Company, which made her one of Afghanistan's first female tech CEOs
  • Co-founding the Digital Citizen Fund, which teaches technology to Afghan girls and women and started the Afghan Girls Robotics Team
  • Advocating for women's rights and opportunities in Afghanistan
  • Teaching Afghan girls to code, an oversight the Taliban have since corrected

By her own admission, she paid the women in her programs in bitcoin. Many of them had no bank account, and money sent the usual way ended up with their male relatives. Bitcoin went straight to the women. The Taliban have since banned bitcoin, along with school for girls past the sixth grade.

Evidence

Farida Nabourema

At large

  • Co-founding the "Faure Must Go" movement at 20 to call for civil resistance against the regime of Faure Gnassingbé in Togo
  • Rallying young Togolese against an authoritarian government
  • Writing more than 400 articles denouncing corruption, dictatorship, and neocolonialism
  • Rushing a ruling family that has only been in power since 1967
  • Organizing the first Africa Bitcoin Conference in 2022

The Gnassingbé family has ruled Togo since 1967. She has campaigned against it since she was a teenager. She now teaches Africans to use bitcoin to escape corrupt money systems, and she co-founded the Africa Bitcoin Institute with Anaïse Kanimba, who also appears on this list.

Evidence

Julian Assange

Convicted

  • Founding WikiLeaks to publish secret documents
  • Publishing the Afghan War Diary and the Iraq War Logs, which revealed civilian deaths the public had never been told about
  • Working with whistleblowers to make government secrets public
  • Insisting on pleading guilty on a Pacific island rather than setting foot on the US mainland

Assange is now a convicted felon. In 2024, after more than five years in a high-security British prison, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to obtain and disclose US national defense information. He was sentenced to time served and went home to Australia. WikiLeaks has accepted bitcoin since 2011.

Aid and abet by donating to WikiLeaks
Evidence

María Corina Machado

In exile

  • Opposing Venezuela's government since 2002
  • Winning the opposition's 2023 presidential primary with more than 90 percent of the vote, a margin normally reserved for the government
  • Being banned from the 2024 ballot anyway, then campaigning for Edmundo González in her place
  • Calling bitcoin a lifeline for Venezuelans living through hyperinflation
  • Advocating for democratic reforms and human rights in Venezuela

She has said, "We envision Bitcoin as part of our national reserves, helping rebuild what the dictatorship stole." The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize went to her while she was in hiding. She left Venezuela in December 2025 after 16 months underground. In 2026, Venezuela's interior minister warned that a "surprise" awaited her if she came back. Her attempts to return have so far failed.

Evidence

Win Ko Ko Aung

At large

  • Speaking out against Myanmar's 2021 military coup
  • Escaping the junta with the only savings it could not freeze
  • Researching bitcoin and human rights as a fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute
  • Writing for Bitcoin Magazine about how bitcoin can protect dissidents in Myanmar
  • Helping nonprofits that operate under authoritarian regimes explore bitcoin

By his own account, the junta froze his bank accounts after the coup and charged him under Section 505A, a law it uses against its critics. He fled across the border into Thailand without his passport. He covered his living expenses there by selling bitcoin he had once bought out of curiosity, then resettled in the United States as a refugee.

Evidence

Edward Snowden

Fugitive

  • Revealing that the NSA was collecting the phone records of millions of Americans
  • Giving journalists classified files on PRISM, XKeyscore, and other surveillance programs
  • Exposing the complicity of tech companies in government surveillance
  • Being charged under the Espionage Act in 2013
  • Taking a layover in Moscow in 2013 that he is still on

Snowden says he paid for the servers behind the 2013 leaks with bitcoin. The United States revoked his passport that year, stranding him in a Moscow airport, and he has lived in Russia ever since. Russia made him a citizen in 2022. He joined the board of the Freedom of the Press Foundation in 2014. Speaking to a bitcoin conference in 2024, he warned that bitcoin transactions can be traced back to the people who make them. He wants that fixed.

Aid and abet by donating to the Freedom of the Press Foundation
Evidence

Alexei Navalny

Deceased in custody

  • Exposing corruption among Russian officials, a habit that landed him in jail many times
  • Organizing anti-corruption protests and rallies
  • Founding the Anti-Corruption Foundation to investigate graft
  • Demanding free and fair elections
  • Phoning one of the agents accused of poisoning him and getting him to talk about his underwear (Yes, he really did that!)

In the first six weeks of 2021 alone, his movement received more than six bitcoin, worth nearly $300,000 at the time. No Russian bank could freeze it. He died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024, while serving 19 years for extremism. His network remains active, and authorities continue to investigate.

Aid and abet by donating to the Anti-Corruption Foundation he founded
Evidence

Evan Mawarire

In exile

  • Starting the #ThisFlag movement in 2016 by draping himself in Zimbabwe's flag, a flagrant act of patriotism
  • Calling a nationwide stay-at-home strike in July 2016 that shut down most businesses in the capital
  • Being charged with subverting the government, a crime that carries up to 20 years in prison
  • Refusing to stop despite repeated arrests

Police arrested this pastor at his own church in September 2017 as he stepped down from the pulpit. His offense was posting videos that criticized the economy. In January 2019 he spent two weeks in a maximum security prison on a subversion charge. He now lives in exile in the United States and speaks at bitcoin events about hyperinflation and financial repression in Zimbabwe.

Evidence

Srdja Popovic

At large

  • Co-founding Otpor!, the student movement that helped topple Slobodan Milosevic in 2000
  • Getting Serbian police to arrest a barrel with the president's face on it
  • Writing "Blueprint for Revolution," a how-to guide for overthrowing dictators without violence
  • Running CANVAS, which has trained activists from more than 50 countries
  • Teaching activists about bitcoin in CANVAS's financial freedom trainings

Popovic teaches revolution for a living. Since Otpor! helped bring down Milosevic, his organization has worked with pro-democracy movements in Iran, Zimbabwe, Burma, Venezuela, Ukraine, and dozens of other countries. In April 2026 he shared a stage at a bitcoin conference in Las Vegas with Evan Mawarire and Anaïse Kanimba, two other individuals on this list.

Evidence

Anaïse Kanimba

At large

  • Co-leading the international campaign to free her father from a Rwandan prison
  • Writing for The Washington Post, CNN, and the BBC about wrongful detention and transnational repression
  • Co-founding the Africa Bitcoin Institute
  • Running the freedom technology program at the World Liberty Congress
  • Getting into bitcoin while campaigning to free her father, which is how it usually starts

In 2020, Rwanda lured her father, Paul Rusesabagina, onto a plane to Kigali, then sentenced him to 25 years in prison. While she campaigned for his release, her sister's phone was infected with Pegasus spyware, and supporters were scared to donate to his legal defense fund under their own names. That is when she discovered bitcoin. He was freed in 2023. The Africa Bitcoin Institute she co-founded has since received funding from the Human Rights Foundation.

Aid and abet by donating to the Human Rights Foundation
Evidence

Keonne Rodriguez & William Hill

Sentenced

  • Building Samourai Wallet, a bitcoin wallet designed to keep its users' transactions private
  • Never holding anyone's bitcoin, since users kept control of their own keys
  • Offering a feature that mixed users' transactions together, which prosecutors said helped criminals launder money
  • Pleading guilty in 2025 to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, in exchange for prosecutors dropping a money laundering charge
  • Receiving prison sentences of five years for Rodriguez, the maximum allowed, and four years for Hill

In April 2025, the Justice Department said it would stop going after mixing services for what their users do. This case went ahead. Rodriguez has been in federal prison since December 2025, and Hill was ordered to report in January 2026. President Trump said in December 2025 that he would look into a pardon, and their families are raising money for legal bills and support.

Aid and abet by donating to their families' legal fund
Evidence
ORGANIZED CRIME

Criminal Syndicates

Criminals rarely act alone. These syndicates collect money from supporters around the world and move it through bitcoin when governments and banks try to stop them.

Anti-Corruption Foundation

Designated terrorist

  • Investigating the hidden wealth of Russian officials since 2011
  • Invading the president's privacy with "A Palace for Putin," an investigation viewed more than 100 million times in under two weeks
  • Leaning on bitcoin as Russian authorities froze its bank accounts
  • Continuing its work from abroad in defiance of a Russian court's ban
  • Accepting donations from ordinary Russians, which Russia now prosecutes as financing extremism

This extremist organization was founded by the late criminal Alexei Navalny. Russia banned it as extremist in 2021 and designated it a terrorist organization in 2025, so donating to it from inside Russia is a crime. The bitcoin address Navalny's team published for donations has received more than 650 bitcoin since 2016.

Aid and abet by donating to the Anti-Corruption Foundation
Evidence

Feminist Coalition

At large

  • Organizing young Nigerian women to fight for education, financial freedom, and political representation
  • Aiding and abetting a protest movement by paying for the food, medical bills, and legal defense of #EndSARS protesters
  • Switching to bitcoin when its bank account was blocked
  • Raising more than $387,000 in two weeks
  • Publishing an alarmingly transparent account of the money it received and spent

This syndicate of young Nigerian feminists, formed in July 2020, bankrolled the #EndSARS protests against police brutality. When its bank account was blocked and its donation link went dead in October 2020, it began accepting bitcoin the same day. It stopped taking donations two days after soldiers opened fire on protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate. Three of its members were later named to TIME's list of emerging leaders.

Evidence

WikiLeaks

Hostile intelligence service

  • Publishing the Afghan War Diary, the Iraq War Logs, and hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables
  • Releasing video of a 2007 US helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed two Reuters journalists
  • Surviving a 2010 financial blockade by the world's largest payment companies
  • Winning a court order that forced Visa's partner in Iceland to resume processing its donations

The director of the CIA, who would know, called this syndicate a "non-state hostile intelligence service" in 2017. In December 2010, bitcoin's own creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, publicly asked WikiLeaks not to use bitcoin, warning that the attention could destroy the young project. WikiLeaks waited six months, then began accepting it.

Aid and abet by donating to WikiLeaks
Evidence

OVD-Info

Designated extremist

  • Tracking politically motivated arrests in Russia since December 2011
  • Counting 20,467 political arrests in Russia in 2022 alone
  • Documenting more than 400 detentions at memorials for Alexei Navalny in February 2024
  • Accepting bitcoin donations, a method it calls "fully independent of the ruble exchange rate and the banking system in Russia"

In June 2026, Russia's financial watchdog added OVD-Info to its list of extremists. By then the group had spent more than a decade on its main extremist activity, which is counting the state's political arrests. Russia had already designated it a foreign agent in 2021. In November 2025, Russian payment services stopped processing its donations without explanation, leaving support from abroad as its most reliable lifeline.

Aid and abet by donating to OVD-Info
Evidence

BYSOL

Designated extremist

  • Supporting Belarusians repressed after the 2020 presidential election, including political prisoners and their families
  • Helping people fired for their political views retrain for new work, an extremist form of career counseling
  • Choosing bitcoin because the other ways to move money into Belarus are under government control
  • Delivering €6.1 million in aid between August 2020 and October 2023

Belarus's Interior Ministry designated the Belarus Solidarity Foundation an extremist group in December 2021, making support for it a crime. Exiled Belarusians founded it five days after the disputed 2020 presidential election, and it operates from Vilnius. At least 159 people in Belarus have been convicted for sending money to solidarity funds and other initiatives the state has labeled extremist.

Aid and abet by donating to BYSOL
Evidence
GLOBAL OVERVIEW

Bitcoin Ban List

The following countries have completely banned bitcoin. Alarmingly, their citizens keep using it anyway. China banned bitcoin mining in 2021 and is still one of the top three bitcoin mining countries in the world.

Afghanistan

Algeria

Bangladesh

China

Egypt

Iraq

Kuwait

Morocco

Nepal

Tunisia

RESISTANCE MONEY

Historical Figures

The following is a list of criminals, some with HUGE rapsheets, that likely would have used bitcoin to avoid the financial system of their day.

Martin Luther King Jr.

King was jailed multiple times for his illicit activity promoting racial equality. It is easy to imagine this criminal using bitcoin to circumvent the traditional financial system in a manner similar to Navalny or Machado.

Nelson Mandela

Mandela spent years in jail for opposing segregation. The townships that he was advocating for are now among the largest adopters of bitcoin as a payment method in the whole world.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Criminal and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is still alive, but serving out an 18-year sentence under house arrest for crimes against the Junta in Burma. She would, no doubt, be glad to know about the ways criminals have been using bitcoin to subvert the Junta in her country.

Oskar Schindler

Oskar Schindler illegally smuggled many people out areas where they would have been sent to Nazi death camps. Had bitcoin been around, he clearly would have illegally helped them preserve their life savings as well, like many of the contemporary criminals listed on this site do.

Harriet Tubman

If you've ever studied anything about American history, this one is basically a "duh" situation.

Mahatma Gandhi

Gandhi was jailed many times for civil disobedience against British rule. At his sedition trial in 1922, he pleaded guilty and told the judge that what was a crime in law was, to him, the highest duty of a citizen. This criminal would have had a much easier time funding his movement with money the British could not seize.

AIDING AND ABETTING

Known Funding Channels

The following organizations accept bitcoin on behalf of the criminals above. In some countries, supporting them is a crime in itself. Russia has opened at least 225 criminal cases against people who donated to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, some for as little as €3. This site never touches the money. Every link goes straight to the organization it names.

Anti-Corruption Foundation

Alexei Navalny's investigators continue their work from outside Russia, funded in part by bitcoin.

Aid and abet

WikiLeaks

In 2010, Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Bank of America cut off its donations, which WikiLeaks says cost it 95% of its revenue. It has accepted bitcoin since 2011.

Aid and abet

Freedom of the Press Foundation

Edward Snowden joined its board in 2014. It maintains SecureDrop, which lets whistleblowers pass documents to journalists without revealing who they are.

Aid and abet

Human Rights Foundation

Its Bitcoin Development Fund pays developers to make bitcoin more private and harder to censor. It also backs the Africa Bitcoin Institute, which Anaïse Kanimba co-founded.

Aid and abet
PUBLIC SAFETY

Know the Warning Signs

Most bitcoin criminals start out as ordinary citizens. Your neighbor, your coworker, or your own child could be next. Check every sign that applies to someone you know, or to yourself.

TIP LINE

See something? Say something.

Report suspected bitcoin criminals to the proper authorities.

Report a Bitcoin Criminal

All reports are kept confidential for 50 years.