The Cyber Crimes Division of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office in Arkansas has launched a pilot program involving the mining of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to monitor the activities of criminals online. The division has generated its own digital currency to track such crimes as the proliferation of child pornography.
Combating cybercrimes
Based on data from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), there has been an increase in the number of individuals who use Bitcoin and secret web browsers to trade or distribute child pornography, to illegally purchase drugs, as well as to engage in prostitution or human trafficking and other unlawful activities.
In an interview with television news station KHBS in early October 2017, Benton County detective David Undiano claimed that the program aims to help their investigators to tackle crimes that they might have previously been unequipped to process.
"People are selling child pornography on the dark web and on the Internet. They are accepting Bitcoins, not payments. We can't use the sheriff's office credit card, and we can’t exchange child pornography. We need some type currency to get this and then identify who we are getting it from. That way, we can go arrest that person."
Opposition to the pilot program
However, despite the potential effectiveness of the campaign, some individuals seem not to be very supportive of it.
In his interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, potential sheriff candidate Glenn Latham voiced his opposition to the policy, claiming that it would eventually result in very high expenses that will be shouldered by local taxpayers.
"These machines that they have to use draw a huge amount of power and cooling costs will go up. That’s at the taxpayers’ expense.”