Quote from: dkbit98 on Today at 12:11:01 PM

Thanks, I might do that.

Just curios, what tools exactly you are using to rate if coins coming from eXch have good or bad score?

Will be glad to chat about it off-the-record.

Quote from: dkbit98 on Today at 12:11:01 PM

I really don't trust AML bots and similar tools, and I suspect they could use any address that users type for check could potentially be flagged as suspicious in future.
If not flagged, address check records will certainly be saved somewhere with an IP address.

I have noticed that very often people in this community confuse the trading mark "AMLBot" with the term that defines AML/risk score screening platforms in general. I think it needs to be clarified, since today I have read at least 3 posts discussing AML screening mechanisms and people define them as "AML bots", most likely due to a confusion caused by the AMLBot trademark.

1.

AML and risk screening platforms are not bots by their nature. They are databases that contain data gathered from continuous blockchain analysis performed by human-made categorization/reporting enhanced with AI/ML in order to automatize following funds flow. An AML/risk score address check is a query to a such database via some application layer interface provided by the database operator.

2.

"AMLBot" is an extremely unreliable risk screening platform operated by a russian team under a company name "SAFELEMENT LIMITED" registered in Hong Kong. Their initial investors and founders come from a high-profile cybercrime background with roots in post-Soviet states who wanted to launder their crypto, therefore they have invested in a such platform that would launder money for them, which was a strategically good decision from a long-term perspective.

AMLBot was initially partnering with the current industry leader Elliptic to source their data and their reputation was good for the excellent data quality and simplified access, till Elliptic has decided to boot AMLBot for contractual violations and potentional money laundering facilitation, since AMLBot has started to provide a Telegram bot permitting the platform access anonymously (given that a Telegram account can be registered using disposable numbers provided by services such as "SMS-Activate" and then be used along with a Tor instance to obfuscate IP).
Once AMLBot have lost their possibility to resell Elliptic, their data quality has drastically reduced and their databases that they have built for themselves during the partnership with Elliptic stopped to be up-to-date because an absence of a reliable source.
Currently, their customers might spend 5 credits for an extended address check that shows all the coin sources and receive nothing as a result ("Unnamed entities"), while checking the same address using any other AML screening platform will provide proper categorization and results.

Since most big market players were aware of that incident, AMLBot was able to somehow survive only because of Bestchange, their close partner, doing most of promotion for them, since Bestchange actively push instant exchangers that wish to be listed to become AMLBot customers (basically insisting) and it seems Bestchange doesn't even consider results from other (and more reputable) AML/risk screening providers when there are disputes between exchangers and their customers within the AML/risk scope, which is a misleading practice on purpose.
Taking a look at AMLBot's customers shows that a considerable part of them are Bestchange long-term resident services, as laterly everybody who is old enough in the industry knows that AMLBot can't be taken seriously.

AMLBot is also known for doing gypsy tricks such as reducing score for some addresses if they were checked on their Telegram bot, therefore, if someone tells you that AML platforms do it, they mostly refer to AMLBot, since this is a nonsensical technique and isn't practiced by more reputable AML/risk screening providers whose customers are world-class LE agencies who need more precise results. Generally speaking, AMLBot may suit (and suits) some mediocre agencies (in terms of crypto intelligence) such as russian FSB, ukrainian SBU and Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, but not more skilled agencies such as DOJ (and other U.S. ones), Europol, NCSC or Dutch cyberpolice.

AMLBot is mostly popular within russian-speaking communities, since their close affiliation with Bestchange and providing a Telegram bot and the platform in russian. They were also a first platform to provide access to non-corporate individuals.

3.

Today, there are many existing alternatives to AMLBot available to private individuals, since the ask for such platforms has increased with appearance of private individuals wanting to perform on-chain investigations. As a result we have many "on-chain sleuths" very popular at the crypto twitter (see @zachxbt and @tayvano_ who are mad hack/exploit victims that turned into individual crypto detectives providing interesting insights from time to time).

Here is a list of such:

GetBlock https://getblock.net/en/
MistTrack (by SlowMist) https://misttrack.io
MetaSleuth https://metasleuth.io
Arkham https://platform.arkhamintelligence.com
TRM Labs https://www.trmlabs.com

Unfortunately, there is no way to use these platforms without associating your IP with address check results, however if you intend to check your own addresses there, I recommend checking third-party addresses as well to create entropy so there is no way to tell whose are belong to you.
Fortunately, there are residential IP proxy services that can be used in a combination with Tor to obfuscate your original IP address. Good residential proxies are not flagged by IP score screening systems.

Finally, there is another free and absolutely anonymous way to have your BTC checked for a risk score, however without getting categorization and risk score details - Wasabi Wallet's default coordinator (or shall we call it "official"?...). They use the AML/risk screening provider called Coinfirm to check submitted UTXOs for the risk score. UTXOs with a high risk score (that usually contain sources such as hacking/exploit/fraud/scam/etc) are rejected from the mixing round and get banned for 1 month from being submitted. If your BTC is what's considered "clean", it won't be rejected and you can withdraw it from a mixing round right before a start. This is a good way to ensure you have minimally clean BTC if you don't want to pay for checks or bother with registering on some platforms. (This is not an ad of their wallet by any means and I personally don't like the version 2 for a considerable amount of reasons)