German police have shut down the cryptocurrency platform eXch, confiscating €34 million ($38 million) in digital assets, authorities said, marking one of the country’s largest crypto-related seizures to date.
The operation, conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Frankfurt public prosecutor’s office, resulted in the seizure of Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Dash. Investigators said the seizure ranks as the third-largest in the BKA’s history.
Founded in 2014, eXch operated on both the surface web and the dark net, allowing users to exchange cryptocurrencies without identity verification.
The platform explicitly promoted its lack of anti-money laundering (AML) measures, making it attractive to illicit actors, according to authorities.
An estimated $1.09 billion in cryptocurrency transactions were facilitated through the platform, including funds tied to criminal activities.
The BKA said some of the assets moved through eXch were linked to the laundering of money stolen during the $1.04 billion Bybit hack — one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts on record.
Authorities intervened on April 30 to shut down the platform, just ahead of eXch’s self-declared closure date of May 1. The early intervention enabled law enforcement to seize more than eight terabytes of server data and secure infrastructure located in Germany.
The platform’s operators are under investigation for allegedly facilitating money laundering and operating a criminal trading platform. No arrests have been announced.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT said in a post that eXch was used to launder millions of dollars from additional hacks, including the Multisig and FixedFloat exploits, and the $243 million theft targeting Genesis creditors.
He also linked the platform to the laundering of funds from numerous phishing scams.
In an earlier post on Bitcoin Talk, eXch administrators had announced the decision to shut down, citing a “hostile environment” and intelligence agency surveillance as reasons for ceasing operations.
The platform denied direct involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack but admitted it could no longer sustain operations under mounting pressure.