Germany’s Federal Legal Police Workplace (aka Bundeskriminalamt or BKA) has seized the net infrastructure and shutdown linked to the eXch cryptocurrency change over allegations of cash laundering and working a felony buying and selling platform.
The operation was carried out on April 30, 2025, authorities stated, including additionally they confiscated 8 terabytes price of knowledge and cryptocurrency property price €34 million ($38.25 million) in Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Sprint.
In response to the BKA, eXch[.]cx, existed since 2014 and provided cryptocurrency swapping companies, permitting its customers to change digital property. It was obtainable each on the clearnet and the darkish net.
eXch “particularly marketed on platforms of the felony underground financial system (UE) that it didn’t implement any anti-money laundering measures,” the BKA stated in a press release.
“Customers have been neither required to determine themselves to the service, nor was person knowledge saved there. Crypto swapping by way of eXch was due to this fact notably appropriate for concealing monetary flows.”
Cryptocurrency property price an estimated $1.9 billion are estimated to have been transferred utilizing the service since its launch. This additionally features a portion of the illicit proceeds gained by North Korean menace actors following the Bybit hack earlier this yr.
The event comes as eXch introduced its personal plans on April 17 to stop their operations efficient this month, prompting the authorities to safe “quite a few items of proof and leads.”
In a message posted on the BitcoinTalk discussion board, eXch stated it was shutting down after it “acquired affirmation of knowledge” that the platform is the “topic of an lively transatlantic operation aimed toward forcibly shutting our undertaking down and prosecuting us for ‘cash laundering and terrorism.'”
“The targets we definitely by no means had in thoughts have been to allow illicit actions corresponding to cash laundering or terrorism, as we’re being accused of now,” it claimed. “We even have completely no motivation to function a undertaking the place we’re considered as criminals. This does not make any sense to us.”
Following the takedown, the Dutch Fiscal Data and Investigation Service (FIOD) stated in a message that it is “actively investigating people concerned in cash laundering and different unlawful actions via this swap service.”
“We need to make one factor clear: this motion just isn’t an assault on privateness. We respect the appropriate to privateness and acknowledge its significance within the digital age. Nonetheless, when companies are closely abused to commit crime, we are going to act,” it added.
“We urge everybody concerned in illicit exercise to stop instantly. The authorized penalties might be critical. Privateness just isn’t the issue – felony misuse is.”