European Union law enforcement agencies have just shut down a crypto-mixing service in Switzerland, seizing more than 12 terabytes of data and more than €25 million ($29.055 million) worth of Bitcoin (BTC).
Europol worked with local Swiss and German police agencies to seize servers and the domain associated with ‘Cryptomixer.io’, which allegedly concealed illegal funds for ransomware groups and dark web markets.
Law enforcement authorities also posted a seizure banner on the mixer’s website.
Europol says Cryptomixer’s software, which blocked the traceability of money on the blockchain, was used by drug and arms traffickers, ransomware operators, money launderers and payment card fraudsters.
“Deposited funds from different users were pooled over a long and random period of time before being redistributed to destination addresses at random times. Because many digital currencies provide a public ledger of all transactions, mixed services make it difficult to track specific coins, concealing the origins of cryptocurrency.
Mixing services like Cryptomixer offer their customers anonymity and are often used before criminals forward their laundered assets to cryptocurrency exchanges. This allows ‘sanitized’ cryptocurrency to be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or for fiat money through ATMs or bank accounts.”
The platform, founded in 2016, is said to have mixed €1.3 billion ($1.627 billion) worth of BTC.
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Featured image: Shutterstock/Kiselev Andrey Valerevich