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Bitcoin was created to give full financial freedoms to human beings. Maybe, Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto had no idea that it can also be the favorite currency for the criminals. In 2020, we are familiar with so many terrible incidents like the Twitter hack in Bitcoin scam, 51% attack on ETC blockchain network, DeFi lending protocol bZx hack, and recently KuCoin exchange hack, etc. These incidents indicate a growing pain created by crypto criminals. Due to the pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrency, we can not reject the fact that it is challenging to prevent Distributed Ledger Technology(DLT) based fraud but I would like to thank the high transparency feature of the blockchain technology. How crypto criminals steal crypto from the hacks and scams? Get it clear, exchange and wallet hacks are not the same as blockchain network hacks. Generally, cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets are being hacked due to phishing attacks, loopholes in the system, and weakly managed servers, etc. Image:-Chainalysis In the case of blockchain hacks, the following are the most notable possibilities. 51% attack Exploiting bugs in the cryptographic codes Lunching Sybil attacks Routing Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks Crypto criminals and terrorist organizations like ISIS or Al-Qaeda use cryptocurrencies for the so many purposes like:- Ilegal black money laundering Buying illicit goods like weapons, rare materials, drugs, wildlife, and human beings, etc. Running scam projects or Ponzi schemes Tax evading Promoting to spread ransomware So how crypto criminals are being caught and punished? Once hackers steal the funds from exchange or wallet, their first aim is to sell stolen cryptocurrencies in the market without revealing the personal information so that they illegally sell stolen amounts on the darknet/dark web with the discounts. Due to massively increased crypto-based crimes, the blockchain community has already formed a forum named The Blockchain Alliance which aims to work together with the crypto community and law enforcement against criminals. It is the beauty of the blockchain technology that every transaction details are visible to the public it means once blockchain confirms the data, it can not be erased. Due to such public nature and transparency of blockchain, some blockchain analytics companies are doing a great job to catch the crypto criminals. Chainalysis, CipherTrace,and Coin Metrics ,etc perform the blockchain analysis by using publicly available data from the blockchain technology to spot how criminals are routing the stolen crypto to cash out. How Chainalysis helps to spot crypto criminals? This top-ranked & 5 years old blockchain analysis company works together with the governments and private companies from so many countries. Basically, it has four most effective products. Chainalysis KYT Chainalysis Reactor Chainalysis Kryptos Chainalysis Data Image:-Chainalysis So many crypto exchange sites use Chainalysis KYT product to detect the flow of the transactions. If they detect the transaction coming from the crypto mixer platform, they are more likely to freeze such funds. Binance and Coinbase are famous for detecting the BTC coming from the mixer. So once an exchange or wallet gets hacked, Chainalysis carefully monitors the hacker's wallet address and flow of transactions followed by that address. If they detect fund is entering on some exchange, they let exchange to know that hackers have just deposited the stolen funds. This is how criminals are being caught. Image:-Chainalysis Nowadays, scammers are finding other ways to sell stolen crypto-like on darknet/dark web so it can be extremely useful to follow the following safety measures. Exchange owners can hire trained software engineers with enough blockchain expertise to create the safest system with higher security layers. Enable two-factor authentication Start to use anti-phishing software Use cold wallets to store valuable cryptocurrencies Blacklist the scam projects, hacker's wallet addresses, and suspicious websites. Thank You!