Judge pushes CFTC trial with Gemini to Jan. 21  

German law enforcement has seized 34 million euros ($38 million) in cryptocurrency from eXch, a cryptocurrency platform allegedly used to launder stolen funds during Bybit’s record-breaking $1.4 billion hack.The seizure, announced on May 9 by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and Frankfurt’s main prosecutor’s office, involved multiple crypto assets, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC) and Dash (DASH). The move marks the third-largest crypto confiscation in the BKA’s history.The authorities also seized eXch’s German server infrastructure with extensive over eight terabytes of data and shut down the platform, the announcement added.eXch exchanged crypto without AMLIn the statement, the BKA described eXch as a “swapping” service that allowed users to exchange various crypto assets without implementing Anti-Money Laundering (AML) measures.The platform operated since 2014 and reportedly facilitated an estimated $1.9 billion in crypto transfers, some of which are believed to be of “criminal origin,” including assets laundered during the Bybit hack.Example flow of Bybit Exploit funds moving through eXch and bridging back and forth between Ether and Bitcoin. Source: TRM Labs“Among other things, a portion of the $1.5 billion stolen from the Bybit crypto exchange, which was hacked on February 21, 2025, is said to have been exchanged via eXch,” the authorities wrote.Multisig, FixedFloat among laundering casesAccording to a post by crypto sleuth ZachXBT, eXch was also involved in laundering millions of funds from other crypto thefts and exploits, including Multisig, FixedFloat and the $243 million Genesis creditor theft.Those are in addition to “countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders,” ZachXBT stated.Source: ZachXBTZachXBT was among the first security analysts to report on eXch’s links to laundering $35 million of crypto assets stolen from Bybit soon after the hack was confirmed on Feb. 21, 2025.Related: Hacken CEO sees ‘no shift’ in crypto security as April hacks hit $357M“Lazarus Group transferred 5K ETH from the Bybit Hack to a new address and began laundering funds via eXch (a centralized mixer) and bridging funds to Bitcoin via Chainflip,” ZachXBT wrote in a Telegram post on Feb. 22.eXch announced termination of services by May 1After initially denying involvement in laundering funds from the Bybit hack, eXch eventually announced it would cease operations by May 1 in a Bitcoin Talk post published in mid-April.“Even though we have been able to operate despite some failed attempts to shut down our infrastructure […], we don’t see any point in operating in a hostile environment where we are the target of SIGINT [Signals Intelligence] simply because some people misinterpret our goals,” it wrote.Addressing the seizure, Benjamin Krause, the senior public prosecutor, stressed the importance of action against “quick and anonymous opportunities for money laundering for any amount.”“Crypto swapping is an essential component of the underground economy, used to conceal incriminated funds from illegal activities such as hacking or trading in stolen payment card data, thus making them available to perpetrators,” he stated.Magazine: Finally blast into space with Justin Sun, Vietnam’s new national blockchain: Asia Express

A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person. He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.An undated picture of Chhipa, a naturalized US citizen born in India. Source: Alexandria Sheriff’s Office via TRM“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probeProsecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.Related: US Treasury sanctions Myanmar militia group for alleged crypto scamsThree days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.Magazine: Terrorism and the Israel-Gaza war have been weaponized to destroy crypto 

A crypto-skeptical commissioner at the US Securities and Exchange Commission has blasted her agency over its settlement letter that could finally end the Ripple legal saga. The SEC and Ripple filed a joint settlement letter in a New York court asking for the August 2024 injunction against Ripple to be dissolved and $75 million of the $125 million in civil penalties held in escrow to be returned to the crypto firm, according to a May 8 statement from the SEC.SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw blasted the pending deal in a May 8 statement, saying it would damage the regulators’ ability to keep crypto firms in line and undermine the court’s ruling.Source: James Filan“This settlement, alongside the programmatic disassembly of the SEC’s crypto enforcement program, does a tremendous disservice to the investing public and undermines the court’s role in interpreting our securities laws,” she said.“In the meantime, the settlement joins a line of dismissals that collectively erode the credibility of our lawyers in court who are being asked to take legal positions today contrary to the ones taken just months ago.”Under the Trump administration, the SEC has slowly been walking back its hardline stance toward crypto firms forged under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s reign, dismissing a growing number of enforcement actions against crypto firms.At the same time, Crenshaw argues that if Judge Torres accepts the settlement, it would erase “the investor protections we already won” and leave a “regulatory vacuum,” until the crypto task force hammers out a regulatory framework.“The settlement is not in the best interests of the investors and markets that our agency is tasked with serving and protecting. It creates more questions than answers.”In August last year, a Judge ordered Ripple to pay $125 million in penalties after ruling the firm’s XRP (XRP) token was covered by securities laws when sold to institutional investors.What’s next for the Ripple case? It’s not over yetWhile the SEC and Ripple have agreed to a settlement, it’s still not a done deal, according to ex-federal prosecutor James Filan, because there are several steps before the long-running legal saga can conclude.For a start, Judge Torres needs to provide an indicative ruling if she agrees to the settlement letter, Filan said in a May 8 analysis on X.Source: James FilanIf Torres provides an indicative ruling, the SEC and Ripple will ask the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for a limited remand back to Judge Torres, which, if granted, will result in another motion being filed for the agreed settlement, according to Filan.Related: Bitnomial drops SEC lawsuit ahead of XRP futures launch in the US“After the injunction is dissolved and the funds distributed, the SEC and Ripple will ask the Court of Appeals to dismiss the SEC’s appeal and Ripple’s cross-appeal. Then it will be over,” he said.The SEC initially launched legal action against Ripple Labs in December 2020, accusing the firm of illegally selling its token as an unregistered security. Magazine: SEC’s U-turn on crypto leaves key questions unanswered