German police are cracking down on illegal crypto exchanges

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), in cooperation with the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT), faced a major threat to the “infrastructure of digital currency attackers in the underground economy,” it said on Friday. As part of the “Last Exchange” campaign, a total of 47 so-called Exchange Services held in Germany were closed. This makes it possible to exchange fiat and cryptocurrencies and is generally illegal in Germany, as long as it works according to the know-your-customer principle.

“Operators of closed services are accused of deliberately concealing the origin of criminal proceeds on a large scale by using inadequate enforcement of legal requirements and thereby making themselves liable for money laundering and the operation of online criminal trading platforms,” ​​the BKA said in a statement, adding that it seized large amounts of user and transaction data. of non-working jobs.

“We see you”

Crypto exchanges that allow transactions without a registration process and proof of identity are popular in digital sub-borders. Cybercriminals use them, for example, to receive ransoms collected as part of ransomware campaigns. According to the BKA, provisions of this type represent “one of the most relevant structures in the criminal value chain of cybercrime.”


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