A coalition of law enforcement agencies coordinated by Europol announced on Monday the closure of cryptocurrency laundering service Cryptomixer.
Europol confirmed the seizure in a press release, stating that Cryptomixer is “the platform of choice for cybercriminals seeking to launder illegal proceeds from a variety of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, arms trafficking, ransomware attacks, and payment card fraud.”
Europol announced that since 2016, cryptomixers have facilitated the laundering of 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) in Bitcoin.
Hackers and other criminals use laundering services such as Cryptomixer to obfuscate and hide the origin of cryptocurrencies. By design, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on public blockchains, allowing law enforcement as well as blockchain intelligence companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic to track funds over time.
Authorities said they had seized 25 million euros ($29 million) in Bitcoin, as well as three servers, 12 terabytes of data, and the official domain cryptomixer.io, which now displays the customary seizure splash page for law enforcement agencies.
Europol claimed that the site “facilitated the obfuscation of criminal funds from ransomware groups, underground economic forums and dark web markets” and that its software “blocked the traceability of funds on the blockchain.”
“Funds deposited by different users were pooled over a randomized period of time before being redistributed to destination addresses at random times. Many digital currencies provide a public ledger of all transactions, so mixing services makes it difficult to trace specific coins, thereby concealing the origin of the virtual currency,” Europol said.
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Cryptomixer offered anonymity to its customers, including protecting against cybercriminals who wanted to launder cryptocurrencies before taking their funds to legitimate crypto exchanges. Europol said “purified” cryptocurrencies could be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies.
Over the years, authorities have shut down or sanctioned several similar services, including Tornado Cash and ChipMixer.
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