Joint Operation Leads To Arrest Of Perpetrator Behind Crypto ‘Chipmixer’
Notorious ‘Chipmixer’ and Its Creator Busted In an International Level Joint Operation
An international-level joint operation was carried out in the hope of busting the notorious crypto ‘Chipmixer’ used for whitening ill-gotten money.
The operation was joined by Europol, states of Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, and Germany on the information provided by US agencies.
During the operations, the teams busted the identified location from where it seized the Chipmixer.
According to the information provided by the Department of Justice (DOJ) of the US, the ill-intently designed software was eventually taken down.
It was also claimed by Europol in its independent statement that an operation was conducted for seizing the notorious Chipmixer.
Europol’s statement further claimed that from the target site, authorities recovered at least four servers.
Further items seized from the site included roughly 2 thousand Bitcoins (worth about $45 Million) plus the data comprised over 7 terabytes.
Separate Operation Conducted In the US
While in the US, the authorities there also conducted search and seizure operations separately. During the US independent operations, authorities managed to get to the two domains linked with Chipmixer.
According to DOJ’s information, these domains were drawing users who wanted to utilize Chipmixer. The authorities also got a hold of the account which belonged to ‘Github’.
Operations in Germany
Similar operations were also initiated by the German Federal Criminal Police in Germany. They also wanted to get the people behind the illegal and illicit activities involving the particular mixer.
German Police also successfully seized the main servers pertaining to Chipmixer which were providing back-end support to the software.
In addition to the servers, German Police also took in custody digital currencies worth $46 Million discovered from the operation site.
This is a huge amount that the law enforcement authorities have collected from their joint operations against the fraudsters.
Excessive Use of Chipmixer
Chipmixer emerged in 2017 and was purposefully designed to commingle and mix digital currencies without leaving behind their trails.
It allowed the users to hide or remove their crypto money trails by directly blocking the trails provided by a blockchain.
Consequently, the Chipmixer became a tool for whitening laundered or ill-gotten money without anybody’s notice. Many foul and corrupt politicians have been reported to have used the particular mixer for their illicit activities.
It rapidly started to be excessively used by cybercriminals, particularly ransomware artists, scammers, and hackers as well.
Initially, it was used specifically for mixing Bitcoins but later modifications and improvements allowed it to mix multiple cryptocurrencies. The mixer started to work for criminals for a number of cryptocurrencies.
It was used for different kinds of cryptocurrencies as it had gotten beyond Bitcoin.
Although law enforcement agencies became aware of Chipmixer they failed to beat it down for tracing the trail of funds.
Over $3 Billion So Far Whitened Using the Mixer
According to international authorities, over $3 Billion worth of digital funds had been whitened by criminals through the mixer.
However, access to the mixer was restricted and it could only be accessed through a limited number of platforms on the darknet.
Creator of the Mixer
According to DOJ’s information, the person who built the mixer was a 49-year-old Vietnamese who went by the name Minh Quoc Nguyen. DOJ is of the view that Nguyen launched the mixer somewhere in mid-2017.
After the launch, Nguyen advertised the mixer in online markets and on social media platforms. He was then contacted by the darknet to provide the mixer to the notorious market.
Nguyen is currently a wanted criminal in several states, including amongst others the US.
In the US, he is charged with illegal transfer, money laundering, crypto theft, ransomware, and other such related crimes. If he is caught and brought to trial, then he is likely to serve a jail time of over 40 years, said DOJ.
David Anderson is a writer and researcher for Copy Trading Critic. David provides comprehensive news articles from the online trading world. He also writes reviews and analysis of copy trading platforms and strategies.