The cryptocurrency mixer ChipMixer’s assets were allegedly seized on March 15 by The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation, or Europol, due to the company’s alleged involvement in money laundering operations. In terms of total assets, 1,909.4 Bitcoins were taken.
Forty-six million dollars were exchanged in 55 transactions totaling 44.2 million euros. Previously, on November 25, 2022, decentralized finance analyst ZachXBT claimed that the hacker(s) of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX laundered 360 BTC ($5.9 million) using ChipMixer following a $372 million attack.
In addition, the ChipMixer website was taken down after four of the servers used to host the application were seized by the authorities. Since its launch in 2017, according to Europol, the application has allegedly laundered approximately 2.73 billion euros.
Law enforcement officials claim ChipMixer, a cryptocurrency mixer operating without a license and founded in the middle of 2017, specialized in blending or clearing tracks pertaining to virtual currency holdings. The ChipMixer software made it appealing for hackers wanting to launder illicit gains from criminal operations since it prevented the blockchain trail of the funds.
The Federal Police of Belgium, the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, the Central Cybercrime Bureau of Poland, the Cantonal Police of Zurich Switzerland, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Department of Justice coordinated the investigation and subsequent enforcement.
How the crypto mixer managed to hide the originating trail of funds
A significant portion of this, according to law enforcement, is related to dark-web markets, ransomware organizations, illicit goods trafficking, the acquisition of materials for child sexual exploitation, and stolen crypto assets. When funds were deposited into ChipMixer, it was converted into “chips,” or little tokens of equal value, which were then combined to hide the originating trail of funds.
This service has also been used by ransomware actors like Zeppelin, SunCrypt, Mamba, Dharma, or Lockbit to launder ransom payments they have received.
Authorities are also looking into the likelihood that ChipMixer was used to launder some of the cryptocurrency assets that were taken after the collapse of a significant crypto exchange in 2022.
Information sharing between national authorities for the operation was facilitated by Europol. According to the organization, it also offered analytical support tying accessible data to numerous criminal cases within and outside of the EU and assisted the investigation through operational analysis, crypto tracing, and forensic analysis.
