The Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD), along with Europol and Luxembourg authorities, has closed down the cryptocurrency mixing services of Bestmixer.io.
According to the May 22 announcement, the agencies have seized six servers of the mixing service provider in the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
Cryptocurrency mixing or tumbler services shake up the transaction data of non-private coins to make the transaction sources untraceable, resembling transaction with a privacy-oriented digital currency. These services clear the record of any digital asset that was involved in illegal or shady activity, making them clean.
Cleaning hundreds of millions worth crypto
Bestmixer.io was one of the three largest cryptocurrency tumblers available in the market. According to Europol, its service started in May 2018, and since then registered $200 million in revenue. The platform provided mixing services with major digital currencies including Bitcoin , Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin
The investigation against Bestmixer.io was initiated in June last year by the Dutch anti-fraud agency with support from cyber security company McAfee. FIOD has gathered information on all the interactions on this platform in the past year, including data of IP-addresses, transaction details, Bitcoin addresses, and chat messages.
“The investigation so far into this case has shown that many of the mixed Cryptocurrencies on Bestmixer.io had a criminal origin or destination. In these cases, the mixer was probably used to conceal and launder criminal flows of money,” the announcement stated.
Bestmixer.io’s website also put up a notice about the seizer of its services.
Despite the shut down of Bestmixer.io, a number of crypto tumbler services including ChipMixer, BitMix.Biz, and BitBlender are still operating.
Cryptocurrencies have become the preferred means of extortion by cybercriminals and regulators all around the world are getting alarmed. Earlier this year, the Finance Committee of France’s National Assembly recommended a complete ban on privacy coins to curb illegal dealings.