Cryptomixer Taken Offline in Multinational Raid as EU Tightens Control on Privacy Tools
Authorities in Germany, Switzerland, and Europol dismantled Cryptomixer, one of Europe’s longest-running Bitcoin mixing services, seizing its Zurich servers, domain, and more than €25M in crypto tied to laundering activity. Investigators also secured 12 terabytes of logs and wallet data, giving them years of visibility into ransomware groups, darknet vendors, and organized networks that used the service since 2016. While the takedown is framed as a major enforcement success, targeting a privacy-preserving tool based in a highly regulated European jurisdiction suggests a political dimension, especially given that Cryptomixer’s structure and ownership were far less opaque than mixers operating from Russia or other non-cooperative jurisdictions. This action fits into a broader EU trend of dismantling infrastructure that enables anonymization, regardless of whether the underlying operation is complex or simply undesirable from a regulatory standpoint.
When “No Crypto” Turns Into $300K
A routine family-law investigation turned into a financial soap-opera when investigator Blair Joynson dug past spotless disclosures and uncovered more than $300K in hidden crypto.
What looked like clean bank records unraveled once he spotted a pattern of small recurring transactions that led to an undisclosed account and an unreported exchange.
The case is a sharp reminder that in crypto, even when someone thinks they’ve erased their trail truth tends to surface for those who know exactly where to look.
Especially when no privacy tools were used.
Crypto Investigations Have a New KPI: Response Time
When a major Korean exchange lost over $30M in minutes, it showed once again what Global Ledger has already warned: speed, not sophistication, is the decisive factor in modern crypto crime. The attacker drained dozens of assets across hundreds of transactions in under 15 minutes far faster than any manual monitoring could catch and only automated response allowed the exchange to freeze a portion before it disappeared.
Chainalysis now echoes the same point in its write-up: breaches aren’t rare, perfect defense doesn’t exist, and the only real variable left is whether your detection fires within the first few transactions or after the money is already unrecoverable.
In crypto, investigations don’t just need to be good.
They need to be immediate.
More weekly top stories:
US takes another steps in the fight against narcotic traffickers
Elliptic on memcoin scams (rugpulls)
Sanctions decreased the Grinex volume
Crystal Intelligence on address poisoning
More stories from this week:
See you next week!
