The U.S. claims that a global effort has shut down Chipmixer, a cryptocurrency mixing business that allegedly laundered more than $3 billion in cryptocurrencies. Justice Department (DOJ). National law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Germany, Belgium, Poland, and Switzerland participated in the operation with the assistance of Europol.
A Global Mission Destroys the Chipmixer
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) declared on Wednesday that there had been "a coordinated international takedown of Chipmixer," which it referred to as "a darknet cryptocurrency "mixing" service responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency." Europol, which supported the operation to take down the mixing service, independently declared:
"National authorities took down the infrastructure of the platform for its alleged involvement in money laundering activities and seized four servers, about 1909.4 bitcoins in 55 transactions (approx. EUR 44.2 million) and 7 TB of data."
Federal law enforcement agencies in the United States seized two domains that led users to the Chipmixer service as well as one Github account, while the German Federal Criminal Police (Bundeskriminalamt) seized the Chipmixer back-end servers and more than $46 million in cryptocurrency, according to the DOJ.
Chipmixer permitted customers to deposit bitcoin (BTC), which it "then mixed with other Chipmixer users' bitcoin, commingling the funds in a way that made it difficult for law enforcement or regulators to trace the transactions," according to the Justice Department.
The DOJ stated that although it has many U.S. users, the service did not register with the U.S. "It primarily functioned as a Tor hidden service to mask the location of its servers and evade seizure by law enforcement," it added. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) of the Department of the Treasury and did not gather any personal data about its clients.
Minh Quc Nguyn, 49, of Hanoi, Vietnam, "developed and ran the web infrastructure used by Chipmixer and promoted Chipmixer's services online," the Department of Justice continued, elaborating:
"Nguyá»…n is charged with operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, money laundering and identity theft. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison."
