Europol shut down a cryptocurrency mixing site that helped launder €1.3 billion

A coalition of law enforcement agencies coordinated by Europol announced on Monday the closure of the cryptocurrency laundering service Cryptomixer.

Europol confirmed the seizure in a press release, describing Cryptomixer as “the platform of choice for cybercriminals seeking to launder illicit proceeds from a variety of criminal activities, such as drug smuggling, arms trafficking, ransomware attacks, and payment card fraud.”

Since 2016, Cryptomixer has facilitated the laundering of 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) of bitcoin, Europol said.

Hackers and other criminals use money laundering services like Cryptomixer to obfuscate and hide the source of their cryptocurrencies. By design, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum are built on public blockchains that allow law enforcement, as well as blockchain intelligence companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic, to track funds over time.

Authorities said they seized €25 million ($29 million) worth of bitcoin, along with three servers, 12 terabytes of data, and the official domain cryptomixer.io, which now displays the start page of martial law enforcement seizures.

According to Europol, the site “facilitated the obfuscation of criminal funds from ransomware groups, underground economy forums and dark web marketplaces,” and claimed that its software “blocked the traceability of funds on the blockchain.”

“Funds deposited from different users are pooled over a long and random period before being redistributed to destination addresses, again at random times. Since many cryptocurrencies provide a public ledger of all transactions, mixing services make it difficult to trace specific currencies, thus hiding the origin of the cryptocurrency,” Europol said.

Cryptomixer offered customers anonymity, such as providing cover for cybercriminals who wanted to launder their cryptocurrencies before taking the funds to legitimate cryptocurrency exchanges. Europol said the “cleaned” cryptocurrency could be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or fiat cash.

Over the years, authorities have shut down or imposed sanctions on many similar services, such as Tornado Cash, ChipMixer and others.

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