German Police Dismantle Crypto Exchange eXch, Allege Massive Money Laundering

Big news out of Germany: the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) just took down the online infrastructure of the eXch cryptocurrency exchange. Why? Allegations of money laundering and running a criminal trading platform, that's why.

The raid went down on April 30, 2025. The BKA says they seized a massive 8 terabytes of data. They also grabbed cryptocurrency assets worth a cool €34 million (about $38.25 million), spread across Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, and Dash.

So, what was eXch all about? According to the BKA, eXch[.]cx had been around since 2014, offering crypto swapping services - letting users trade different digital currencies. It was available both on the regular internet (the clearnet) and the dark web.

Here's the kicker: eXch apparently "specifically advertised on platforms of the criminal underground economy (UE) that it did not implement any anti-money laundering measures," the BKA said in a statement. In other words, they were practically inviting criminals to use their service!

"Users were neither required to identify themselves to the service, nor was user data stored there. Crypto swapping via eXch was therefore particularly suitable for concealing financial flows."

Estimates say around $1.9 billion worth of crypto assets flowed through eXch since it launched. Shockingly, this includes some of the stolen funds from the Bybit hack from earlier this year, which was linked to North Korean threat actors.

Interestingly, this all happened right after eXch announced plans to shut down this month. The authorities swooped in to grab "numerous pieces of evidence and leads."

eXch posted a message on the BitcoinTalk forum, saying they were closing shop because they "received confirmation of information" that they were the "subject of an active transatlantic operation aimed at forcibly shutting our project down and prosecuting us for 'money laundering and terrorism.'"

They claimed: "The goals we certainly never had in mind were to enable illicit activities such as money laundering or terrorism, as we are being accused of now. We also have absolutely no motivation to operate a project where we are viewed as criminals. This doesn't make any sense to us."

After the takedown, the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) chimed in, saying they're "actively investigating individuals involved in money laundering and other illegal activities through this swap service."

The FIOD added: "We want to make one thing clear: this action is not an attack on privacy. We respect the right to privacy and recognize its importance in the digital age. However, when services are heavily abused to commit crime, we will act."

"We urge everyone involved in illicit activity to cease immediately. The legal consequences can be serious. Privacy is not the problem – criminal misuse is."