Two German government agencies under the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor’s office have shut down 47 illegal exchanges, some of which used cryptocurrencies.
The Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) have shut down an exchange hosted in Germany. According to an announcement on Thursday, the law enforcement agencies claim that the platform committed money laundering by obtaining and concealing the source of illicit funds.
The exchange also circumvented customer verification protocols that verify the identity of users before allowing digital asset transactions. The anonymous sources of these funds played a role in the movement of illegally obtained funds, the press release continues. As part of the investigation, ZIT and BKA obtained user and transaction data from the exchange, which will be used to continue the fight against cybercrime.
Earlier this year, the German government seized 50,000 BTC (valued at $2 billion at the time) from the now-defunct illegal streaming service Movie2K, The Block previously reported.
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About the Author
MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020, joining just before Bitcoin first broke $20,000. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for the publication, covering all aspects of crypto news but with a penchant for NFTs, metaverse, web3 games, fundraising, crime, hacking, and crypto ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from the Science, Health, and Environment Reporting Program (SHERP) at New York University and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. You can follow MK on X @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.