The United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Ukrainian law enforcement have taken down nine digital currency exchanges that were allegedly aiding and abetting cybercriminals. The FBI’s Detroit Field Office and National Police of Ukraine conducted court-approved activity on May 1, leading to the seizure of the domains of these virtual currency exchange services.
The seized domains included popular sites like 24xbtc.com, 100btc.pro, pridechange.com, trust-exchange.org, and bitcoin24.exchange. These platforms provided users with anonymous digital currency exchange services, bypassing many of the regulations required by licensed cryptocurrency exchanges. Anyone attempting to access these websites will encounter a seizure notice from the authorities.
The FBI has stated that the exchanges, which catered to users in both English and Russian, had “lax” Anti-Money Laundering measures and gathered minimal Know Your Customer information, if any at all.
The FBI stated that unlicensed exchanges of this nature are significant hubs in the cybercrime ecosystem. As per the agency, many of these virtual currency exchanges were marketed on online forums dedicated to discussing criminal activity.
Much of the criminal activity taking place at these exchanges was perpetrated by cyber actors behind ransomware attacks, along with other scammers and cybercriminals.
The FBI has been actively involved in several cryptocurrency-related issues in recent months. On April 27, the agency searched the residence of former FTX executive Ryan Salame concerning his role as one of Sam Bankman-Fried’s previous top advisors. On Feb. 3, the FBI seized 86.5 Ether and two non-fungible tokens valued at over $100,000 from a reported phishing scammer.
The seizure was the outcome of a lengthy investigation by independent blockchain investigator ZachXBT, who initially exposed the operation on Twitter in September 2022.