12 Russian intelligence agency officers are charged with the attempt of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. The allegations include: hacking into computers with voter data, stealing emails and documents, identity theft, money laundering and funding their activities through cryptocurrencies.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged 12 Russian nationals with federal crimes that are related to the 2016 U.S. election, claiming that members of the GRU, a Russian Federation intelligence agency within the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian military funded their efforts to hack the presidential campaign of Hilary Clinton from the democratic party through the use of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin (Bitcoin) , that were supposedly not only acquired through mining.
Charges include the use of cryptocurrency to purchase servers and accounts for illegally accessing related networks through email-spoofing attacks, the release of stolen documents and emails on DCLeaks.com whilst posing as “American hacktivists,” and laundering over $95,000 worth of cryptocurrency in order to pay for their hacking endeavors.
However, Doj’s indictments do not imply any change of vote count or any other effect on the 2016 election.
Being a high-profile accusation this could have an impact on the state of the government’s attitude to cryptocurrency, not to mention that if these allegations are confirmed, in court, a new wave of political conflict may arise between the U.S. and Russia.