Garden Bridge $2 billion, but detectives allege North Korean money laundering

Garden announced it had bridged more than $2 billion in tokens, but popular detectives allege money laundering. ZachXBT claimed that more than 25% of that total came from criminals.

Other investigators have also claimed that North Korean hackers are using the platform, but much information remains unclear. Still, without an actual criminal investigation, these community watchdogs may be powerless to stop bad actors.

Is Garden a money laundering operation?

Garden, a young Bitcoin bridge app, recently achieved an impressive milestone. The platform has managed to generate over $2 billion in token swaps.

Founder Jazz Gulati celebrated the feat, but was suddenly met with backlash. ZachXBT, a leading cryptocurrency detective, accused Garden of substantial money laundering in harsh and vitriolic terms.

Detectives later revealed these hostile statements. For example, he disapproved of the charges against Tornado Cash because Crypto Tumbler was truly decentralized. THORChain, despite its problems, also has organic grassroots appeal and is used faithfully by many clients.

In contrast, Garden is more centralized and recently raised its swap limit to 10 BTC. This made it even more attractive to illegal actors, who allegedly began using it to launder more than $1 million at a time.

ZachXBT claimed that Garden made millions of dollars in profits from this money laundering and refused to return the funds or acknowledge the problem.

Connections with North Korea and White Hat Weaknesses

Granted, ZachXBT may not be completely neutral as it has had disputes in the past with some of Gurati’s former businesses.

But Taivano went a step further and echoed his concerns. Specifically, she claimed that hackers based in North Korea were laundering money through Garden.

She got into a brief argument with Gurati, telling him to “fuck off” after she claimed Garden didn’t take user safety or compliance seriously. Although he did not provide any specific evidence, he said the company was certainly aware of the discrepancies related to North Korea.

But there is a disturbing undercurrent to these lawsuits. Even if the detectives were right and Garden made millions of dollars in North Korea-related money laundering, what would that change?

In today’s cryptocurrency crime wave, the power of white hat community investigators to stop real crimes is diminishing.

ZachXBT wanted the “government” to jail Garden’s team, but it’s unclear who will be able to come forward. The United States has drastically reduced its enforcement of cryptocurrencies, and international law enforcement agencies could take years to investigate illegal activity.

In other words, community backlash may not be a problem. If Garden is indeed profiting from money laundering, grassroots support may have nothing to do with profits.

The post Garden Bridges $2 billion, but detectives claim North Korean money laundering appeared first on BeInCrypto.