Reported by James Reddick

European and U.S. authorities have taken down a cryptocurrency mixing platform that facilitated rampant money laundering, and they arrested an alleged operator of the service.

On Wednesday, Europol announced that German and U.S. agencies seized four servers belonging to ChipMixer as well as approximately $46.5 million in Bitcoin.

The U.S. Department of Justice also announced the arrest of Minh Quốc Nguyễn, 49, a Vietnamese man allegedly behind the platform, which it described in a statement as “a darknet cryptocurrency ‘mixing’ service responsible for laundering more than $3 billion worth of cryptocurrency” since 2017.

“This morning, working with partners at home and abroad, the Department of Justice disabled a prolific cryptocurrency mixer, which has fueled ransomware attacks, state-sponsored crypto-heists and darknet purchases across the globe,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said in the DOJ release. The operation involved agencies in Germany, Poland, Belgium, Sweden and the U.S.

Cryptocurrency mixers are used to cover financial tracks by blending funds into a common pool so that their origins are difficult to follow.

Read full report: https://therecord.media/chipmixer-takedown-cryptocurrency-money-laundering-europol-doj