German Authorities Seize €34M in Crypto and Shut Down Exch Crypto Swapping Service

German authorities have shut down a cryptocurrency swapping service and seized €34 million in crypto in what is being reported as the third-largest BKA crypto bust.

The Public Prosecutor General’s Office in Frankfurt and Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seized the servers of Exch on April 30, shutting down the platform and securing bitcoin, ether (ETH), litecoin (LTC), and dash to the value of €34 million (converted at current rates).

The platform, which could be accessed via Exch.cx, also held more than eight terabytes of data.

Launched in 2014, Exch was advertised on darknet forums and allowed users to anonymously swap cryptocurrencies without any anti-money laundering (AML) checks, according to a statement by the officials.

Authorities estimate that $1.9 billion in crypto had flowed through the service, which included portions of the $1.5 billion stolen in the February Bybit exchange hack.

The operators of the service are being investigated for operating a criminal trading platform and professional money laundering.

While Exch had planned to cease operations by May 1, authorities acted preemptively to secure evidence in cooperation with the Dutch Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD).

“The scale of this operation demonstrates clearly that cybercrimes are being committed on an industrial level,” said BKA Cybercrime Division head Carsten Meywirth.

“We will continue to raise the risks for the underground economy using every tool at our disposal.”

Dr. Benjamin Krause of Frankfurt’s Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) added that crypto swapping services are frequently used to launder the illegal proceeds of cybercrime.

“This type of enforcement is therefore essential to protect the financial and legal order,” he said.

Onchain investigator ZachXBT reported on the news and stated that Exch was used to launder hundreds of millions from the Bybit hack, Multisig hack, Fixedfloat exploit, $243M Genesis Creditor theft, and countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders.

One of the largest crypto seizures to date was in May when BKA officers closed down a Bitcoin mining operation in a former supermarket in eastern Germany.

The miners, who were reportedly part of a criminal organization, had set up 300 high-performance mining rigs in the abandoned supermarket to generate Bitcoin, consuming an enormous amount of electricity.

The operation was part of a broader investigation into cybercrime and money laundering activities, and it highlighted the increasing prevalence of cryptocurrency-related offenses in Germany and elsewhere.