Security News > 2024 > January > Vastaamo hacker traced via ‘untraceable’ Monero transactions, police says
Julius Aleksanteri Kivimäki, the suspect believed to be behind an attack against one of Finland's largest psychotherapy clinics, Vastaamo, was allegedly identified by tracing what has been believed to be untraceable Monero transactions.
Finnish investigators from the National Bureau of Investigation, with the help of Binance, followed the trail of payments to Kivimäki, who exchanged the funds for Monero and then exchanged them back to Bitcoin.
Monero is a privacy-oriented decentralized cryptocurrency that many believe to be untraceable.
Due to the privacy nature of the coin, some of the larger exchanges no longer support Monero to comply with money laundering regulations.
As soon as the funds were moved to a Monero private wallet, which is designed to be confidential and untraceable, things became challenging.
KRP did not disclose the exact mechanism for tracing the Monero transactions, citing the need to protect sensitive investigative techniques that can prove invaluable in future cases.