On March 15, the General Public Prosecutor’s Office in Frankfurt am Main, the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT), and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized the server infrastructure of the world’s largest darknet crypto mixer located in Germany, ChipMixer.
Along with approximately 7 terabytes of data, Bitcoin worth around €44 million (approximately $51 million USD) were seized – the largest ever seizure of crypto assets by the BKA.
The operators of ChipMixer are suspected of operating a criminal trading platform on the internet and conducting commercial money laundering.
The BKA cooperated closely with the United States Department of Justice (US DoJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation Philadelphia (FBI), Homeland Security Investigations Phoenix, and Europol during the investigation.
ChipMixer was a service that had been operating since mid-2017, which primarily accepted Bitcoin of criminal origin to be paid out again after the mixing process to disguise the origin of the funds. Deposited cryptocurrencies were split into uniform small amounts, called “chips,” to thwart investigations, and then the user’s “chips” were mixed together to hide the source of the funds. The platform promised its users complete anonymity.
It is estimated that ChipMixer laundered crypto assets worth approximately 154,000 Bitcoin or €2.8 billion ($3.2 billion USD) since 2017. A significant portion of these funds came from darknet marketplaces, fraudulently obtained cryptocurrencies, ransomware groups, and other criminal activities.
It is suspected that parts of the cryptocurrency stolen in connection with the insolvency of a large cryptocurrency exchange in 2022 were laundered through ChipMixer. Additionally, transactions in the millions can be traced to the darknet platform “Hydra Market,” which was shut down by the ZIT and the BKA in April 2022.
Ransomware actors, such as Zeppelin, SunCrypt, Mamba, Dharma, or Lockbit, also used the service for money laundering.
A seizure banner was published on the Tor website of the service, and the main suspect in the US trial was also wanted by the FBI. Furthermore, the “Rewards for Justice Program” of the US DoJ offered a reward for further investigation-relevant information.
