Technology has changed money-laundering

ON JUNE 2nd Bill Guan, the chief financial officer of the Epoch Times, a right-wing newspaper, was arrested. Prosecutors in New York charged him with laundering $67m, allegedly buying pre-paid debit cards using cryptocurrency. (Mr Guan has pleaded not guilty.) Chainalysis, a blockchain-analysis firm, estimates that $22.2bn in illicit funds were laundered globally using cryptocurrencies in 2023. Despite Western sanctions, Iran, North Korea and Hamas, a terrorist group, all launder funds with crypto.

As Geoff White, a journalist, makes clear in a gripping new book, money-laundering can seem bloodless and abstruse, but it is going to become only more relevant and widespread. That is because technology is making this kind of crime easier—and much harder to detect.