Odd Lots · Monday, September 7, 2026
Oliver Bullough stated that criminals are increasingly combining cash and cryptocurrencies, particularly stablecoins, to launder money. Cash is used at the street level, then exchanged for crypto to facilitate global wealth movement. He noted that while cash remains essential for street-level transactions, crypto offers a faster, more secure way to transfer illicit funds internationally.
“Crypto allows you to do that instantaneously. So the really entrepreneurial money laundering gangs now tend to, and this is the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians do this too. They combine cash and crypto.”
“So, yeah, cash remains the most useful criminal tool at a street level. But it's bulky, it's not secure. It's kind of annoying and smelly. It's annoying to count and so on. So if you can get away from using that as quickly as possible in order to move it around the world, that's where crypto comes in and is super useful.”