On April 30, the internet crime branch of Frankfurt’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, along with Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), shut down the platform, which is believed to have been used to launder much of the funds stolen in the $1.46 billion hack of Bybit in February. German police have seized infrastructure belonging to the cryptocurrency platform eXch and confiscated more than $30 million worth of digital currency. The blockchain research firm Elliptic estimated that more than $200 million worth of Bybit’s stolen cryptocurrency went through eXch, which said it had received an “insignificant” amount of the stolen funds. According to a BKA release, police seized the exchange’s German server infrastructure, more than 8 terabytes of data and crypto assets worth about $38.2 million. Immediately following the hack of Bybit, the platform accused eXch of serving as a conduit for hackers to launder the funds and requested that it freeze the funds, which was rebuffed. German investigators estimate that since the service launched in 2014, cryptocurrency worth about $1.9 billion has been transferred through the exchange. eXch professes to be a privacy-minded exchange intent on preserving financial anonymity — a position that law enforcement and researchers say makes it ripe for money laundering. Subsequent investigations by threat researchers charted the flow of funds through eXch after the exploit by North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
This Cyber News was published on therecord.media. Publication date: Fri, 09 May 2025 18:30:08 +0000