Cybercriminals’ crypto platform ChipMixer seized in international operation | CPT PPP Coverage

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BRUSSELS, March 15 (Reuters) – International authorities
have cracked down on the cryptocurrency platform ChipMixer,
alleging it helped obscure the digital money trail for online
drug dealers, Russian military hackers and North Korean
cybercriminals, Europe’s Europol police agency and the U.S.
Department of Justice said on Wednesday.

The site – which authorities say laundered more than $3
billion worth of cryptocurrency – was offline on Wednesday,
replaced by a banner which read, “THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SEIZED”
and displaying the logos of German, American, Swiss and Polish
law enforcement organizations.

The Justice Department said it had charged Vietnamese
national Minh Quoc Nguyen, 49, with money laundering and
identity theft in connection with the platform’s operation. In
its indictment, the department claimed that Nguyen openly
flouted financial regulations and at one point told users of a
Bitcoin forum that “‘Money laundering’ is a crime made-up by
governments that spy on their citizens.”

In an email, the Justice Department said Nguyen was not in
custody. Reuters was not immediately able to determine his
current whereabouts; attempts to reach him by email were not
immediately successful. A message sent to ChipMixer’s publicly
posted email address was not immediately returned.

ChipMixer, an unlicensed cryptocurrency mixer set up in
mid-2017, specialized in mixing or cutting trails related to
virtual currency assets, authorities said. Europol described it
as “one of the darkweb’s largest cryptocurrency laundromats” and
said that more than 40 million euros ($42.2 million) worth of
cryptocurrency had been seized.

Digital currency tracking service Elliptic said ChipMixer
had been used to launder over $844 million in Bitcoin that it
tied directly to illicit activity – including at least $666
million from cryptocurrency thefts.

Elliptic said in a blog post that ChipMixer was one of
several mixers used to launder proceeds of hacks perpetrated by
the Lazarus Group, a hacking gang that cybersecurity specialists
and Western countries allege to be operated out of North Korea.

The Justice Department said the Russia’s military
intelligence service – best known under its old acronym, the GRU
– had also used the service to purchase infrastructure for
hacking operations.

Because blockchain transactions are publicly visible,
cybercriminals often use mixers to obscure the trail of
ill-gotten digital currencies and other such services that have
been subject to law enforcement seizure in the past.

In May 2019, for example, Europol announced the seizure of
Bestmixer.io, a similar site.

($1 = 0.9488 euros)
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta in Brussels and Raphael Satter in
Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Josie Kao)