The European police agency, Europol, has announced the shutdown of the cryptocurrency service Cryptomixer, which has been operational since 2016 and became a significant tool for cybercriminals.

According to law enforcement officials, approximately 1.3 billion euros in Bitcoin have been laundered through the platform. In a press release, Europol described Cryptomixer as the "primary service for cybercriminals" attempting to conceal illicit earnings from activities such as drug trafficking, arms dealing, ransomware attacks, and credit card fraud.

Cryptocurrency mixers, including Cryptomixer, are used to complicate the tracking of the origins of digital assets. Although cryptocurrencies operate on public blockchains where each transaction can be traced, such services pool funds from multiple users and randomly distribute them among different addresses, significantly complicating the work of law enforcement and blockchain analysis firms.

As part of the operation, law enforcement seized 25 million euros in Bitcoin, three servers, 12 TB of data, and the domain cryptomixer.io. Europol noted that the service was actively used by groups linked to ransomware, darknet markets, and shadow forums.

Cryptomixer also offered users the opportunity to "clean" their cryptocurrency before withdrawing it to legitimate exchanges or converting it to cash. This made the service appealing to criminals looking to hide their revenues. It is noted that this is not the first instance of such a closure; previous mixers like Tornado Cash and ChipMixer have also been sanctioned or shut down.