On April 30, 2025, the German police, with the support of the Netherlands, conducted a large-scale operation against the eXch crypto exchange, which had been operating since 2014. The platform was shut down, servers were seized, and €34 million in BTC, ETH, LTC, and DASH was confiscated.
Also seized:
- more than 8 TB of data
- evidence of links to the darknet
- a possible role in laundering part of the $1.5 billion stolen in the Bybit hack
The platform was actively promoted as a KYC-free exchange that does not collect personal data, which made it popular among darknet users.
Authorities suspect operators of:|
- Money laundering
- creation of an illegal online platform
The exchange planned to close on May 1, but the security forces got ahead of the operators and managed to collect evidence.
