Cryptocurrency Laundering Database

Cryptocurrency, once hailed as a disruptive financial innovation, has rapidly evolved into a double-edged sword. While it provides secure, decentralized, and efficient transaction channels, it has also become a haven for criminals, kleptocrats, and cybercriminal syndicates seeking to obscure the origin of illicit funds.

Traditional money laundering required a complex network of shell companies, banks, and corrupt intermediaries. With cryptocurrencies, illicit actors can move millions across borders in minutes—sometimes anonymously, and often without triggering compliance checks. Tools like mixers (e.g., Tornado Cash), privacy coins (e.g., Monero, Zcash), and decentralized exchanges have made tracing the source of funds exponentially more difficult.

At Anti Money Laundering Watch (AML Watch), we recognize that cryptocurrency laundering represents one of the fastest-growing and most elusive threats in the global financial system. That’s why our Cryptocurrency Laundering Database documents high-risk wallets, laundering typologies, confirmed and suspected laundering incidents, and entities enabling or facilitating these flows. This resource is vital for regulators, journalists, banks, crypto firms, and investigators worldwide.

How Criminals Exploit Crypto Networks to Launder Money

Cryptocurrency laundering takes many forms, often combining traditional laundering techniques with new, tech-driven methods. Here’s how criminal organizations adapt:

Mixing & Tumbling Services

These services blend illicit crypto with clean coins, obscuring the transaction trail. While some claim to offer privacy, many have become essential tools for laundering proceeds from darknet markets, ransomware attacks, and state-sponsored theft.

Privacy Coins

Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, privacy-focused cryptocurrencies like Monero offer untraceable transactions. These are favored by organized crime and hacker groups for large-scale laundering.

Chain Hopping

By converting crypto from one asset to another (e.g., Bitcoin to Ethereum to Monero), criminals break the transactional chain, making forensic analysis nearly impossible without advanced tools.

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) Protocols

Decentralized platforms allow pseudonymous users to access complex financial services without KYC requirements. Launderers use DeFi to deposit and withdraw illicit funds via lending, staking, or liquidity pools—blending dirty assets with legitimate flows.

NFT Laundering

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are now being used for wash trading—artificially inflating asset values and disguising transactions. Because NFTs can be transferred easily between anonymous wallets, they’re ideal for disguising bribe payments or criminal profits.

Our database not only records such typologies but also links them to real cases, actors, and transactional histories.

Notable Cases and Entities in Our Database

The Cryptocurrency Laundering Database includes data-rich profiles of confirmed and suspected laundering networks. Each profile documents wallet addresses, linked exchanges, transaction chains, and associated individuals or corporate fronts. Here are some illustrative examples:

• North Korea’s Lazarus Group: Responsible for laundering over $1.2 billion in stolen crypto through mixers and offshore exchanges.
• Hydra Market Takedown: After Europol’s action, thousands of Bitcoin transactions were traced, revealing laundering links to Russian-speaking cyber syndicates.
• Bitzlato Exchange: Shut down for facilitating over $700 million in illicit transactions, including ransomware payouts.
• Binance Investigations: Under regulatory scrutiny for weak AML compliance, allegedly allowing flows tied to sanctions evasion and drug trafficking.

Each entry includes risk scoring, jurisdictional exposure, and potential red flags—making our database a practical tool for due diligence and investigative research.

Red Flags: Identifying Laundering in the Crypto Ecosystem

Our team has developed a structured list of red flags based on FATF guidance, forensic blockchain analysis, and case investigations. Key red flags include:

• Repeated use of high-risk wallets connected to known laundering schemes
• Transactions routed through mixers with no commercial justification
• High-value NFT trades between linked wallets with no market activity
• Sudden inflows from ransomware wallets to DeFi pools
• Use of multiple exchanges with minimal KYC to break transaction chains
• Transfers to and from sanctioned jurisdictions (e.g., Iran, North Korea, Russia)

We incorporate these red flags into our risk scoring methodology, allowing users of the database to quickly assess the severity of each case.

Who Uses This Database — And Why

The Cryptocurrency Laundering Database is used by:

• Regulators & FIUs: For tracking and investigating suspicious crypto transactions and creating typology-based risk reports.
• Crypto Exchanges & Wallet Providers: To flag and prevent onboarding of high-risk clients or wallets.
• Banks & Financial Institutions: For enhanced due diligence (EDD) on clients linked to crypto assets or flows.
• Investigative Journalists: To trace networks involved in kleptocracy, political corruption, and state-sponsored laundering.
• Academic Researchers: Studying laundering innovation in the digital age.

How We Collect, Verify, and Rate Each Case

Each case in our database follows a rigorous multi-source verification process:

1. Initial Identification: Via leak documents (FinCEN Files, Chainalysis reports, etc.), law enforcement disclosures, or media investigations.
2. Blockchain Forensics: Cross-checking wallet behavior, transaction chains, and known patterns using open-source tools and analytics.
3. Entity Linking: Verifying ownership, control, or beneficial interest through corporate records, leaked documents, or whistleblower data.
   Risk Rating: Assigning a jurisdictional and entity-level risk score based on laundering complexity, transaction volume, and red flags.

All entries are referenced with credible sources including law enforcement, regulatory reports, blockchain explorers, and investigative journalism.

Why Transparency in Crypto Laundering Matters

Unchecked crypto laundering enables massive criminal operations and undermines trust in the blockchain economy. When launderers succeed in moving billions undetected, they fund terrorism, prolong wars, enable kleptocracy, and destabilize entire economies.

Publicly documenting and exposing these cases is not just an act of transparency—it is a deterrent. It pressures exchanges to tighten controls, regulators to harmonize standards, and criminals to lose their safe havens.

At AML Network, we believe that exposing laundering networks in the crypto sphere is essential for safeguarding democratic institutions, financial systems, and civil society.

Jurisdictional Risks and Enforcement Gaps

Our research highlights specific jurisdictions where crypto laundering thrives due to weak enforcement or intentional regulatory arbitrage. Key concerns include:

• UAE: Hosting opaque crypto exchanges with minimal enforcement, attracting billions in suspect flows.
• Russia: A hub for ransomware payouts, sanctioned individuals, and high-risk exchanges operating globally.
• Nigeria & West Africa: Rising use of crypto to bypass capital controls and facilitate cross-border laundering.
• Caribbean Offshore Jurisdictions: Used as entry/exit points for laundering networks converting fiat to crypto and vice versa.

We also flag jurisdictions with weak implementation of FATF’s Travel Rule and KYC protocols for VASPs (Virtual Asset Service Providers).

Features of the Cryptocurrency Laundering Database

• Case-Based Entries: Detailed laundering case profiles with summaries, wallet data, risk ratings, and links.
• Filter by Jurisdiction, Coin, or Risk Level
• PEP & Corporate Linkage: Flagging politically exposed persons or shell companies connected to each case.
• Downloadable Reports: Exportable PDFs for regulatory, investigative, or journalistic use.
• Live Updates: Continuously updated with fresh cases and enforcement outcomes.

Join the Fight Against Crypto Laundering

The future of finance depends on clean systems. If crypto is to be a force for good, it must be protected from misuse. Join us in the fight to expose, document, and shut down the pipelines of digital laundering.

Whether you’re a regulator, journalist, compliance officer, or academic, the Cryptocurrency Laundering Database on Anti Money Laundering Network is your essential tool to stay informed, investigate confidently, and act decisively.