Europol has announced the closure of the Cryptomixer service, which operated since 2016 and had become a vital tool for cybercriminals.

According to law enforcement, approximately 1.3 billion euros in Bitcoin were laundered through this platform. In its press release, Europol referred to Cryptomixer as the "primary service for cybercriminals" attempting to conceal illegal 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 every transaction can be traced, such services pool funds from multiple users and randomly distribute them across different addresses. This significantly hinders the efforts of law enforcement and companies like Chainalysis and Elliptic, which specialize in blockchain analytics.

As part of the operation, authorities 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, dark web markets, and shadow forums.

Cryptomixer also offered users the option to "clean" their cryptocurrency before withdrawing it to legitimate exchanges or converting it to cash, making the service attractive to criminals looking to hide their proceeds. This is not the first such case; earlier, similar services like Tornado Cash, ChipMixer, and others faced sanctions or closure.