"The financial crimes investigation unit of the US Treasury Department, also known as FinCEN, said today it identified approximately $5.2 billion in outgoing Bitcoin transactions potentially tied to ransomware payments. FinCEN officials said the figure was compiled by analyzing 2,184 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed by US financial institutions over the last decade, between January 1, 2011, and June 30, 2021. While the initial SAR reports highlighted $1.56 billion in suspicious activity, a subsequent FinCEN investigation of the Top 10 most common ransomware variants exposed additional transactions, amounting to around $5.2 billion just from these groups alone.”