Aussie Police Probe Virtual Worlds For Money Trail

schliz writes "Australian law enforcement has flagged virtual worlds as a 'growing area of interest' in its fight against money laundering and cybercrime. Police are reportedly investigating unnamed virtual worlds, as well as online money transfer services such as e-gold and Hawala/Hundi."

A little late?

[Compaqt]

This [wikipedia.org] seems to say that e-gold was shut down by the authorities (the ones that make it illegal to keep secrets from them, but also illegal to publicize their secrets), and all they're doing now is trying to get people's money back in some way or another.

Sidenote:

Beginning January 2006, eBay has restricted buyers and sellers from using many online payment systems and encouraged them to use Paypal, ... owned by eBay. ... eBay cited e-gold's policy of non-reversible transactions as a detriment to the buyer experience.[26]

Non-reversible is good. Are payment processors supposed to be modes of payment, or net-nannies? If anything, non-reversible would mean fewer problems as people won't buy from anything other than reputable stores.