This looks like a case of in theory yes, in practice no.

Tracing btc transactions to real persons can be quite some work and is a new kind of cat and mouse game.

Easier than with either cash or gold.

Unless you know where and when the ransom exchange takes place.

For criminals this is far less convenient than obfuscating the transaction trail.

In practice all tokens including BTC are massively used for law evasion. Criminal don't need any fancy Monero for that, they only need to break the chain once, or maybe a few times an that is enough. That usually happens at the entry points, a criminal backe exchanges of any size will happily take your cash or digital money and exchange then for any tokens you like and vice versa. A politician then declares that his several BTC worth a few millions were "fairly mined" and nothing to see there. Or a corrupt government pays with tokens for some sanctioned wares. The whole Axis of Losers trade is propped up by mafia's USDT, which are used to trade between Axis countries and willing collaborators like India, to buy oil/rockets/chips/soldiers/anything, with central exchange in Dubai and other petrocratias.

India banned crypto. It never even traded using crypto. By the way a country of billion plus should have freedom to do trade in whatever way they like

I tried to pay my parking ticket in heroin, and they threw me in jail!

Viva la revolución!

And other countries have freedom to scoff at that or even sanction trade with it (gasp, the horror!). Freedom works both ways, you know.

A fitting quote for the moment:

"Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other." (c) George Orwell

Also regarding India and tokens, sure they are officially banned. But they are still a key link a in trade chain, that' why I mentioned Dubai and its neighbors. They act as a laundromat and a tumbler, obscuring financial flows. And one part of the Russia-India trade or Russia-Iran trade or even Russia-China trade involves tethers (USDT), without which exchanging rubles to rupee or to yuan directly would be highly problematic and risky. Tokens mitigate some of the risk by hiding financial flows through multiple jurisdictions.

>> "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other." (c) George Orwell

America and Europe invaded other counties for no valid reasons which means they are the fascist nations.

Is not America buying Russian Uranium and fertilizers is not helping Russian economy?.

Is not Europe buying Russian gas and oil is not helping Russian economy?

btw India never ever traded with crypto. bought oil under price cap which was set by the west.