A 33-year-old Danish man has been handed four years and three months’ imprisonment for fencing and laundering over DKK 3 million (USD 453,200) using Bitcoin (BTC). He had laundered around 380,000 BTC between January 2009 and September 2018 estimated to be worth $2.5 billion at the time.

According to crypto media in Denmark, the unnamed man had knowingly received large sums of dirty money from criminal activity. He then used the funds to purchase Bitcoins which he transferred to offshore Cryptocurrency accounts held by accomplices. The man was also convicted of cryptojacking, where he hacked into servers and other people’s computers to illegally use them to mine crypto.

The man was caught after Danish police discovered that one of his bank accounts was linked to a blackmail and extortion scam, of which he turned out to be the mastermind. The account in question belonged to a foreign bank, and bore evidence of Bitcoin transfers made.

Denmark’s Police Commissioner Troels Jul Kjærgaard expressed confidence in his country’s ability to tackle crypto and cyber related crime: “We have the competence, and we are willing to prioritize resources to investigate even complex crimes committed online.”

This is not the first time Danish authorities have followed Bitcoin trails to track down criminals, and crypto media have noted that their efforts seem to be paying off. Back in 2017, for example, drug traffickers were caught after police traced them through their Bitcoin transactions.

Crypto in general still raises concerns about exploitation of its anonymity by criminals and terrorists, particularly for more privacy-centric crypto such as Monero (XMR). In connection with this, it is no surprise that crypto’s possible relation to money laundering and terrorism financing features highly on international agendas, such as for the upcoming G20 meetings in Japan in June as The Crypto Sight reports.

While governments are taking heightened caution towards such security issues, there are some who believe it unlikely that terrorists, in particular, may find crypto attractive enough for their needs – for now. Earlier this month, The Crypto Sight reported that US think tank RAND Corporation had said crypto in its current form and operation is actually not an effective means of financing terrorism.