Law enforcement agencies from multiple European countries, joined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Europol, have taken down the ChipMixer cryptomixor infrastructure and seized € 44 million worth of bitcoins. This was reported by the police service of the European Union. Authorities from Germany and the USA, with support from the special services of Switzerland, Belgium and Poland, shut down the platform’s infrastructure.
In the operation, four servers, 7 TB data, and 1.9 thousand bitcoins worth € 44.2 million were confiscated. The ChipMixer site is also no longer functional. According to Europol, the ChipMixer service, created in mid-2017, helped launder money and allowed users to cover up financial crimes related to drug trafficking, weapons, hacking programs, and fraud. It is estimated that the platform facilitated the laundering of 152,000 BTC, equivalent to approximately € 2.73 billion.
Cryptocurrency mixers can make it harder to track transactions by mixing cryptocurrency flows to increase anonymity. In August 2022, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency platform. It was alleged that the platform was used to launder billions of dollars and evade sanctions against the DPRK.
This crackdown on ChipMixer aligns with global efforts to combat money laundering, and with the fight to regulate cryptocurrency transactions that can aid in financial crimes.