On Nov. 28, authorities shut down one of the Europen’s most persistent cryptocurrency money laundering services following coordinated Swiss-German raids that brought down Cryptomixer platform, with investigators saying it’s used by concealed ransomware gangs to conduct Bitcoin money laundering operations.
Supported by Europol’s cybercrime specialists, the takedown is the latest escalation in Europe’s fight against the financial networks around cryptocurrency and money laundering, only two years after the agency helped dismantle the high-profile ChipMixer platform.
Obscure Criminal Money
During the Nov. 24–28 action week, Swiss and German law enforcement seized three servers in Zurich, the cryptomixer.io domain, over 12 terabytes of data, and more than €25 million in Bitcoin, under the pretense cryptocurrency money laundering.
Europol revealed the service had processed over €1.3 billion in illicit transactions since 2016, further underscoring the scale of the cryptomixer shutdown
“Deposited funds from various users were pooled for a long and randomized period before being redistributed to destination addresses, again at random times,” explained Europol in its announcement.
As the agency noted, “mixing services make it difficult to trace specific coins, thus concealing the origin of cryptocurrency,” a method that directly challenges the importance of KYC and AML for crypto exchanges as well as broader crypto AML compliance frameworks.
Operating on both the clear web and the dark web, Cryptomixer became a preferred platform for criminal groups aiming to erase on-chain traces before moving their funds into exchanges, cash-out services or other digital assets, deepening concerns about crypto and money laundering across the region.
According to TRM Labs, the service’s clients even included North Korea–linked hackers, who previously relied heavily on mixers before shifting toward faster, less anonymous methods. Such activity is consistent with global spikes in cryptocurrency crimes and cross-border investigations into Bitcoin financial crimes connected to ransomware and hacking operations.
Operation Olympia
The takedown on Bitcoin money laundering, known as Operation Olympia, is the latest in a string of multilateral efforts to weaken the financial infrastructure of cybercrime.
Europol’s Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce coordinated information sharing, hosted operational meetings and deployed forensic specialists to support the seizure – tools essential in tracking and laundering Bitcoins through international networks.
Europol highlighted its role as a central hub for coordination, saying it works to “act as a broker of law enforcement knowledge, providing a hub through which Member States can connect and benefit from one another’s expertise.” This includes monitoring complex schemes involving Bitcoin mixer money laundering and strengthening Bitcoin anti money laundering regulation across member states.
On the global stage, in 2023, Europol worked with American and German authorities to take down the ChipMixer service, confiscating nearly $50 million in Bitcoin. And just days before Operation Olympia, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) announced prison sentences for the co-founders of Samourai Wallet, another mixer long used by North Korean hackers.
Authorities say the pressure on mixers for Bitcoin money laundering operations will continue as criminal groups increasingly rely on anonymizing tools to support ransomware, fraud, trafficking, and other cyber-enabled crimes. This aligns with intensified oversight as the global money-laundering watchdog launches crackdown on cryptocurrencies, as they go into a more aggressive international policy enforcement.
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