International sting shuts down $390M crypto money-laundering ring
An international operation involving 11 countries shut down AudiA6, a money-laundering “mixer-as-a-service” used by cybercriminals, especially ransomware groups, to obscure stolen crypto. Authorities arrested two administrators in Georgia, seized 25 domains, 30+ servers, 80 vehicles, and froze about $900,000 in cryptocurrency. Between 2022 and 2025, the service handled more than 336 million euros in illicit funds; Chainalysis said its wallets received about 10,333 BTC, worth roughly $389 million at the time. The scheme relied on thousands of fraudulent KYC identities and more than 6,000 linked money-mule records, including Russian-speaking intermediaries. Investigators from the US, Europe, Japan, Australia, and other countries coordinated through Eurojust and Europol. Authorities also say the same network ran Dark2Web, a marketplace for illicit services.
