The cryptocurrency mixer Cryptomixer has been shut down by law enforcement agencies in Europe for facilitating cybercrime and money laundering, Europol announced on Monday.
Accessible both from the clear and the dark web, Cryptomixer was a mixing service (tumbler) designed to help customers obscure the trail of their cryptocurrency by combining their deposits with those from other users into a large, pooled fund before sending back an equivalent amount of untraceable coins to a wallet specified by the customer.
While such services can have legitimate use cases (for example, to protect an individual’s financial privacy), they are in many cases used to launder funds obtained from illegal activities.
According to Europol, Cryptomixer was used to mix €1.3 billion ($1.5 billion) worth of Bitcoin since its creation nearly a decade ago. The law enforcement agency said the service was often used to launder proceeds from ransomware attacks, credit card fraud, and weapons and drugs trafficking.
The service has been targeted as part of Operation Olympia, an operation conducted by law enforcement agencies in Germany and Switzerland, with support from Europol and Eurojust.
As part of the operation, investigators seized three servers in Switzerland, Cryptomixer’s surface web domain, and more than 12 Tb of data, along with roughly €25 million ($29 million) worth of Bitcoin.
Europol has not mentioned any arrests as part of Operation Olympia.
Cryptocurrency mixers are often targeted by law enforcement. The United States Justice Department announced earlier this year that it had charged three Russian nationals accused of operating the Blender and Sinbad mixers.
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