The European Union Police Department (Europol) and the US Department of Justice have ordered the closure of transaction mixing services ChipMixer, confiscating the volume of $46 million in Bitcoin and charging the Vietnamese founder.
According to Europol’s most current announcement, ChipMixer’s web-site has been confiscated by US and German authorities more than allegations of revenue laundering routines. The company seized four server servers, 7TB of information and about one,909 BTC (equivalent to $46 million).
Belgian, Polish and Swiss authorities also assisted in the investigation.
🚨 International 👮 have dismantled ChipMixer, a darkweb cryptocurrency mixer favored by organized crime.
💰 As substantially as forty million euros seized by the authorities in 🇩🇪 (@GStA_FFM_ZIT & @bka) AND (@FBI & @USDOJ_Intl). , 🇨🇭 and 🇵🇱 also supported.
More⤵️https://t.co/AVX1nL7f85 pic.twitter.com/ve2YWINcbW— Europol (@Europol) March 15, 2023
ChipMixer was launched in 2017 with the aim of giving traders anonymity. The device purportedly wiped 152,000 BTC ($three.eight billion) of “dirty money” from dark internet markets, ransomware, trafficking in unlawful products, youngster exploitation materials, and massive quantities of encrypted revenue.
Ransomware like Zeppelin, SunCrypt, Mamba, Dharma and Lockbit also use ChipMixer to get rid of revenue traces.
Notably, the US Justice Department has also accused the man or woman behind ChipMixer to be a Vietnamese nationwide named Nguyen Minh Quoc, 49, who lives in Hanoi. This man or woman is accused of revenue laundering, identity theft and unlawful currency transactions by way of ChipMixer.
Justice Department Investigation Leads to Takedown of Cryptocurrency Mixer Darknet That Processed Over $three Billion in Illegal Transactionshttps://t.co/rPzQh9fNTM
— Department of Justice (@TheJusticeDept) March 15, 2023
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also issued an arrest warrant for Nguyen Minh Quoc.
Minh Quoc Nguyen allegedly facilitated the laundering of close to $three billion really worth of Bitcoin. He is desired by #FBI on costs of revenue laundering, working an unlicensed revenue transfer business enterprise and identity theft: https://t.co/U0W3yjH9yY pic.twitter.com/RgsQJoRfi6
— FBI Most Wanted (@FBIMostWanted) March 15, 2023
In August 2022, The US Treasury Department has accepted a different well known revenue mixing device, Tornado Cash, since it is believed that he “facilitated” the infamous North Korean criminal group – Lazarus Group – to launder a massive volume of dirty revenue. The Tornado Cash growth group was consequently targeted by the authorities at the time developer Alexey Pertsev was arrested by Dutch authorities Together prison sentence until eventually April 2023.
However, lately the Tornado Cash “successor” undertaking appeared Built by one particular of the authentic developers, identified as Privacy Pool, up to date with “transparency” options for traders to stay away from government scrutiny.
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