With the cooperation of the US and German governments, a cryptocurrency company that has been laundering cryptocurrencies stolen by North Korea and criminal groups so that the judicial authorities cannot trace them has been caught.
The U.S. Department of Justice announced on the 15th that it had cracked down on online cryptocurrency platform ChipMixer, which provided a mixing service necessary to launder more than $3 billion (about 400 billion won) of cryptocurrency from 2017 until recently.
The Ministry of Justice said it had worked with German authorities to seize Chipmixer’s domains, servers, and more than $46 million in cryptocurrency.
In addition, Minh Quoc Nguyen (49) of Hanoi, Vietnam, who operated the chip mixer, was charged with money laundering, unauthorized business, and identity theft, and explained that if the charges are confirmed, he could face up to 40 years in prison.
According to the indictment filed by the Ministry of Justice, Chipmixer provided a mixing service that mixed the bitcoins deposited by customers with the bitcoins of other customers, making it difficult for judicial and regulatory authorities to track transactions.
Chipmixer offered several features to enhance the anonymity of offenders and hid the location of its servers to avoid seizure by law enforcement authorities.
In addition, while providing services to several clients in the United States, it has not registered with the US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).
The Ministry of Justice said Chipmixer laundered over $700 million in bitcoin, including cryptocurrencies stolen from blockchain video game company Axie Infinity in 2022 and blockchain technology company Harmony in 2020 by North Korean-linked hacker organizations Lazarus and APT38.
In addition, the General Reconnaissance Administration (GRU), a Russian military intelligence organization, was also one of the customers who entrusted Chipmixer with bitcoin washing.
In addition, customers of ‘Hydra’, the world’s largest darknet market, also visited the chip mixer. The darknet market is a black market on the Internet where drugs and stolen financial information are traded.
“Chipmixers have helped all sorts of criminals escape scrutiny by making it easy to launder vast amounts of cryptocurrencies, especially bitcoin, on an international scale,” said federal prosecutor Jacqueline Romero for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.