The Bitcoin mixing service Bestmixer was forced to cease operations after a nearly one-year investigation of money laundering charges. It is reported by Bleeping Computer.
Like other similar services, Bestmixer.io split the amount in bitcoins into smaller transactions and mixed them with transactions from other sources in order to hide their origin, and then transfers the entire amount minus the commission to the final address.
It also offered similar services with Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash.
The investigation believes that service customers could launder money through cryptocurrency.
Bestmixer offered a very clear page on why someone should mix their cryptocurrency. On this page Bestmixer described the current anti-money laundering policies and how its service could help evade these policies by making funds anonymous and untraceable. Offering such a service is considered illegal in many countries.
John Fokker
Head of Cyber Investigations, McAfee
Bestmixer was opened in May 2018. For the year of its existence, its turnover amounted to about 27,000 BTC (approximately $ 200 million). Fiscal Information and Investigation Service claims that a significant part of the funds passed through the mixer was obtained as a result of conducting illegal activities or was used to finance criminal gangs.
Policemen confiscated a domain and six servers in Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In addition, they got access to all transactions carried out using the service, cryptocurrency and IP-addresses, as well as messages from the chat. This information is currently transmitted to Europol.
