Thoughts on this situation

It's pretty crazy how many criminals are figuring out that mixers can help them avoid getting caught. Not sure how it is in your country, but in mine it’s getting out of control. Just the other day, a dude got arrested and all his stuff got seized. He scammed a woman from another country in a romance scam, using a well-known person from my country. He cashed out in Bitcoin, and they traced him down pretty easily. He got caught and sentenced. They managed to recover a small amount of money while selling off his seized assets to pay back the woman. What blows my mind is the reaction I saw on TikTok. Everyone commenting was from my country, you could tell by the dialect and the flags they were using. People were asking why he didn’t mix his Bitcoin transactions, and the comments were filled with this same thought, blaming mixers as the perfect tool for scamming and getting away with it. Some might think this post isn’t needed, but it’s aimed at those who believe mixers are only for people wanting privacy. It really shows that criminals might be using mixers a lot more than just folks looking to keep things private.

That’s why anything that has to do with mixers were banned on this forum. And I totally support that a lot of bad people will want to take advantage of privacy and carry out various scams and criminal activities.

There is nothing wrong in using mixers, just because bad people use it doesn't make it illegal, good people that loves to protect their privacy use it. People use gun isn't? Bad people use it and good people use it too, just because one bad person use it to rob another doesn't make the rest of people with gun criminals, that said. Let's look at what happened and why he was identified after using a mixer. Using mixers alone doesn't give you privacy alone, there are many things that might have gone wrong while using a mixer or after using a mixer. - He probably used a centralized mixers, most of the centralized mixers claimed not to keep logs but you can't say for sure, there is a point failure with your privacy. What if the money was big amount and the government collaborate with the mixer to identify the logs? You can't say for sure what happened behind even though it's unlikely, the point of failure brings doubt. - The guy must have misused post mixing step, it's possible he might have combined the mixed Bitcoin together and probably joined previously used addresses. - Some desperate people use centralized exchange for cash, he must have sent the mixed Bitcoin to Bybit or Bitget since they are one of the popular p2p exchange in NGN, that's one trap. For privacy sake and not to justify where the guy got the money, if he did use coinjoin and spent each mixed coin independently, the chance of identifying the Bitcoin and the user is zero.

Scammers will always leave a lead and trace always, this is not about Mixers being criminalised for being a privacy tool, and the same advice they are giving him about Mixers is what they are going to give to other legit cryptocurrency users whenever you want to make privacy your priority.

Crime occurs because of the intent to commit it. If Mixer is used as a positive tool, it will not lead to criminal activity, because Mixer is a place where people value privacy. People who value privacy and always prioritize it do not necessarily engage in illegal activities. Don’t blame everything in that space just because of one small blemish.

Not everyone that goes  to.worship centers to pray  are  saints Not everyone using fiat cash  use for a right  purpose Not everyone using a bank get their money clean, and so on Same goes for  Bitcoin and the services surrounding  it. You shouldn't  expect everyone using Bitcoin or mixers to be saints  and only needs it for only their privacy without any other hidden agendas. Just like how people can  lunder  money,  people can mix Bitcoin for similar stuffs  but that doesn't  mean everyone using mixers are criminals.

There's so much going on behind the scene than anyone can imagine. If you're surprised at this, then you clearly just didn't understand how the mixer scheme works. What's the whole purpose of calling it a "tumbler" service if it's only meant to be used for all-good-deeds? That barrier isn't there to censor anything, so pretty much every mixing request is treated, even with the knowledge that 70-80% of those may be tainted coins.

it’s a little hypocritical to generalize mixers because it’s the same as saying only criminals use bitcoin so it should be banned. mixers just like a lot of tools in the crypto space may be used inappropriately but it’s not inherently bad. however careful use of mixers should be always observed

When you quote someone, make it clear whome you’re quoting and stop mixing things up.  I’m sure you were replying the OP but you quoted my reply also  which should not be like that, please learn to quote properly to make things look smart and clear.

You're right, I don't understand the point of this post. You're writing about fraud, but if you read very old stories about fraud, you'll probably find even very ancient ones, dating back to the 18th century BC, even to ancient Babylon. If you think a mixer has become (or could become) an aid to fraud, you're mistaken. Fraud has been around for 40 centuries or more, and the presence of a mixer has no bearing on it.

OP may not like the question, but since you said it yourself, I'll answer it. Have you ever thought that what they say about your country is that there are a lot of scammers in it? After all, the answers about the mixer came from those whom you called your relatives. Yes, you asked one question, but the answer itself suggests another topic.

People with what they think they can used mixer to do, of course it's proven that vast majority of people are only interested in mixer for personal gain or for their mischievous activities that is why they all said of mixers. Mixer is for privacy and not everyone who would want to their privacy to reveal whereby before they perform any transactions they wouldn't mind using mixer to twist their transactions so that they can't be traced or even tracked down to their location.

The intention for creating mixers is not to perpetrate a scam and shield them in such a way that you don't get to trace those scammers for their fraudulent acts, instead, this is for our privacy and everyone needs to have access to what can guarantee them maximum protection over their finances, also, we cannot pretend to claim that some people are not using it against the normally intention by engaging in fraudulent activities with the use of my mixers, same also applies even in the traditional financial system, there are scammers everywhere and they abused privilege they see for their own selfish interest.

Reasons, why? Scammers are pretty stupid and even victims are careless and stupid too, it does not make scammers smart. People will need to learn more, become more knowledgeable, make decisions and take actions more carefully, then they will not become victims of pretty stupid scammers. Scammers are the smart ones, be careful.

Almost anything that have advantages also has its disadvantages so sure some people will use anything for good while some people will use it for bad things to defraud people; we have seen cases in when people scam people using Bitcoin even before mixers come into existence, so you are right if you say that mixers are not only for privacy but scammers used it to hide their identity when scamming people. Apart from what the person did was wrong, he used centralized exchange to exchange the Bitcoin for fiat that’s why they got him easily; I am not supporting found, but you can’t trust exchanges with your personal details.

A thing will always have both positive and negative use cases, and it depends on how people use that thing. Were weapons created to be used by criminals to do evil things? No, they were created for protection and to be used in wars against enemies, but nowadays, they are used for all sorts of bad things, but we don't blame weapons or say that they shouldn't exist because we know that they also have positive use cases as well because forces in all countries use them to protect their countries and fight the bad guys. Similarly, a platform created to provide privacy for people will obviously be used for negative purposes and by evil people, and you can't always stop that from happening unless the platform receives coins that are already marked as evil or bad and they reject those transactions, which is not possible in cases of normal scams such as the one mentioned in the OP. This is probably one the reasons why authorities are against them and they are usually closed down, even though their main motive might not be this and they generally don't want people to have privacy, but they say that they don't want criminals to stay private using such platforms.

From what I've read on the forum, this is not why mixers were banned. Mixers were banned because of the heat they're getting from the government, and that kind of heat might be a threat to the forum if they freely advertise here. They were not banned because criminals use them. Criminals use casinos, too. Criminals even use Bitcoin, too. So I don't think the reason mixers were banned on the forum was because of criminals. I do not have any data to back it up, but if we really look at the number, I would not be surprised to see that the talk of "criminals using mixers" is exaggerated. It was the same with Bitcoin when the narrative was formed that it's mostly used by criminals, only for the data to show that was false.

The purpose of the mixer is to complete transactions while maintaining confidentiality, but in this case, it makes no sense to fraudulently transact through the mixer. In our country, corrupt persons who are involved in politics have mainly laundered money through mixers. In this case, the mixer is not at fault, rather those who launder the money should be blamed. In the OP's case, the fraudster was caught for not using a mixer. If the fraudster had used a mixer in this case, he would have easily gotten away with it and his identity would never have been revealed.

There's basically nothing wrong with using a mixer and people always attribute harm to something that might be more secure in terms of privacy. Now try to pay attention that the criminal steps that appear are not indicated to be carried out through a mixer process because even fiat currency is used for illicit activities. Protecting privacy is important to some people and it should be seen based on what people want to show so that they try to enjoy a much more privacy-safe process. Regarding criminals who use mixers and if categorized in percentage numbers, is it possible that it is greater. The increase in crime may be increasing but overall the percentage of total transactions is still quite low as I have seen in various cases that have occurred so far. So sometimes something happens that only involves a few cases but people are too skeptical to try to categorize them as a whole.

People often fail to distinguish between two very different notions of "privacy", and this leads to misunderstanding of mixers and many other things. So to review, there are two kinds of "privacy": 1. Privacy from civilians (individuals, companies, criminals, marketers, etc.). 2. Privacy from governments (i.e. law enforcement). Privacy for #1 can be achieved with the help of privacy-focused companies like NordVPN, DuckDuckGo, or Haypenny. These companies make it their business to guard your privacy from the public. However, since they are legal entities, they must respond to valid inquiries by law enforcement. Privacy for #2 can only be achieved through very complicated means, like using a crypto like Bitcoin + a mixer, or using Monero or some equivalent. Most people only want #1 since they don't have any interest in going against their government. People who want privacy #2 above are almost always criminals of some kind, which most of the time is simple tax evasion. Bitcoin itself offers neither form of privacy since all transactions are public. That's why they invented mixers. If you only want the privacy in the first sense, you want to use a product with a private ledger (not publicly accessible), but guarded by a legal entity that responds to targeted law enforcement inquiries. That is all 99% of people really need.