The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol) reported that German and U.S. authorities have confiscated as much as €44 million ($46.3 million) from prominent cryptocurrency mixer, ChipMixer.
On Wednesday, Europol announced that with the support of Belgium, Poland, and Switzerland, the authorities dismantled the infrastructure of the platform, confiscating four servers, 7 terabytes of data, and 1909.4 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $47.7 million.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused ChipMixer of money laundering for various illegal activities, including ransomware schemes, darknet markets, fraud, and state-sponsored actions.
Moreover, on Wednesday, Minh Quốc Nguyễn, an operator of ChipMixer from Hanoi, Vietnam, was charged in Philadelphia with money laundering, operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, and identity theft, according to the DOJ.
It is estimated that since 2017, ChipMixer enabled the laundering of around 152,000 BTC, equivalent to approximately $3.8 billion at current prices. The platform facilitated a significant portion of illegal activities, including ransomware operations, trafficking of illicit goods, and child sexual exploitation.
Additionally, the DOJ has reported that ChipMixer was involved in over $700 million worth of bitcoin related to wallets labeled as stolen funds, which included those associated with North Korean cyberattacks, as well as bitcoin used by the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) to buy infrastructure for the Linux-based malware Drovorub.
In August 2022, mixing services came into the spotlight when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based mixer, for aiding North Korea’s money-laundering activities. Subsequently, the web developer of Tornado Cash, Alexey Pertsev, was detained.
