FRANKFURT – German police on Friday said they had shut down a major online platform for cryptocurrency exchanges, seizing €34 million ($38 million) in assets.
The eXch platform was taken down in late April, according to a statement from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office.
Authorities confiscated €34 million in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Dash, representing the third-largest seizure of crypto assets in the BKA’s history.
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The platform had been operational since 2014, allowing users to exchange cryptocurrencies.
Users were not required to identify themselves, with the platform explicitly advertising itself as not implementing measures against money laundering.
An estimated $1.9 billion had been exchanged on the platform, which was accessible on both the regular internet and the dark net.
The platform’s operators are suspected of having facilitated money laundering and running a criminal trading platform.
The operators had announced they would shut down the service on May 1, but authorities intervened to close the platform on April 30, enabling them to secure more than 8 terabytes of data.
(dpa)