Your research must be limited to reading media hype. Clearly you haven't logged into several of the major criminal blackhat and carding forums or you'd realize bitcoin is a drop in the ocean of so-called "cyber crime". Bitcoin only appears to be the leading payment method for "illegal" transactions, because the media has seized upon it as the boogey-man du jour. Seems you've done no independent research on how criminal networks work outside of reading gawker or CNN.

I would wager that bank transfers using business accounts registered under shell corps, are the most used for 'illegal' transactions, followed by Western Union, followed by Web Money and maybe Liberty Reserve.  Fraud teams have dozens of employees with fistfulls of fake IDs to go pick up WU transactions all day long. How do I know this? Cuz they advertise their services everywhere. The shady world of ponzi schemes is all financed with LR and Perfect Money. Sure there was a big ponzi here, but it's miniscule in comparison to the thousand or so ponzi's going on at HYIP investment forums all around the world. Silk Road may be using bitcoin, but there's been a black market for big $$$ bulk narcotics well before SR was around and all of that is done through cash in the mail or shell corporations.

Real criminals exploit the regular payments system because it's easy. Just register a corporation with phantom directors and open up business accounts anywhere you want. One glance at any carding forum cash out services for hire and you wouldn't have bothered with this survey here. You'd already know what they're using. This isn't for a petty few grams of drugs being peddled over Tor, they're cashing out millions in stolen funds every day since the late 1990s.

AML/KYC rules only frustrate legitimate transactions and don't even phase a modern blackhat or pro criminal. Web Money has perhaps, the most restrictive AML system I've ever seen, like requiring you to show up in person to get certain passports for their system to increase your limit yet blackhats are selling unlimited Web Money passports and ATM cards anyways.

More proof that bitcoin isn't the leading choice for criminals is the massive HSBC, UBS, and Standard Charter laundering that was being done for Iran's oil business and Mexican cartels. No bitcoins were involved. You should be writing a thesis on why absolutely nothing happened to these banks besides a fine, whereas if any individual were to do what they did on even a micro scale, they'd be serving life in prison. Prapaharan Thambithurai of Canada was given a prison sentence for raising just $2,000 for the Tamils. These banks laundered untold billions for the ultra violent Zetas and assisted in funding Iran's nuclear program yet it was quietly swept under the rug.