Operation Olympia by Zürich City Police - Crypto Mixer Uncovered - EUR 23 MM seized

Mark Stanley
3 hours ago
2 min read

We are proud on our Zurich City Police (Stadtpolizei Zürich); Zurich Cantonal Police (Kantonspolizei Zürich); Public Prosecutor‘s Office Zurich (Staatsanwaltschaft Zürich) regarding latest Operation Olympia, which was done by Europol and Bundeskriminalamt Germany. The operation focused on taking down the illegal cryptocurrency mixing service ‘Cryptomixer’, which is suspected of facilitating cybercrime and money laundering. The Server was in Switzerland. Three servers were seized in Switzerland, along with the cryptomixer.io domain. The operation resulted in the confiscation of over 12 terabytes of data and more than EUR 25 million in Bitcoin. After the illegal service was taken over and shut down, law enforcement placed a seizure banner on the website.

Since its creation in the year 2016, over EUR 1.3 billion in Bitcoin were mixed through the service.

Cryptomixer was a hybrid mixing service accessible via both the clear web and the dark web. It facilitated the obfuscation of criminal funds for ransomware groups, underground economy forums and dark web markets. Its software blocked the traceability of funds on the blockchain, making it the platform of choice for cybercriminals seeking to launder illegal proceeds from a variety of criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, ransomware attacks, and payment card fraud.

Deposited funds from various users were pooled for a long and randomised period before being redistributed to destination addresses, again at random times. As many digital currencies provide a public ledger of all transactions, mixing services make it difficult to trace specific coins, thus concealing the origin of cryptocurrency.

Mixing services such as Cryptomixer offer their clients anonymity and are often used before criminals redirect their laundered assets to cryptocurrency exchanges. This allows ‘cleaned’ cryptocurrency to be exchanged for other cryptocurrencies or for FIAT currency through cash machines or bank accounts.

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