German officials have closed down 47 crypto exchanges, accusing them of being involved in illegal activities. The action, announced on September 19, marks a big effort in Germany’s push to stop money laundering and other crimes linked to cryptocurrencies.
How The Crypto Exchanges Where Shutdown
The operation was carried out with the help of the federal criminal police, Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, and the cybercrime division. These exchanges were reportedly hiding the source of money gained from illegal actions, helping hackers and black market traders turn stolen money into legal funds.
The authorities have taken control of the servers used by these exchanges, gaining access to a large amount of user data. Now, when people visit these exchange websites, they see warnings from the authorities saying they have collected data such as transactions, user details, and IP addresses. The message warns that investigations are ongoing, and legal action may follow.
One of the main exchanges shut down was Xchange.cash, which had been operating since 2012. It reportedly handled 1.3 million transactions for more than 410,000 users. Other exchanges taken down include 60cek.org, Baksman.com, and Prostocash.com, all of which had large numbers of users and high transaction amounts.
Even though the authorities have a lot of data, they admit it may be hard to prosecute everyone involved. Many of the suspected criminals live in countries that do not work with German law enforcement, making legal action difficult.
This crackdown on unauthorized cryptocurrency exchanges comes at a time when Germany’s stance on cryptocurrencies is shifting. Recently, the German government was one of the largest holders of Bitcoin, having taken about 50,000 BTC from the piracy site Movie2k.to in 2020. In June and July this year, the government sold these holdings in multiple sales, which would now be worth around $3.15 billion.
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