ChainCatcher news, according to The Paper, the Chief Prosecutor of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, Ying Yong, delivered the work report of the Supreme Procuratorate at the third session of the 14th National People's Congress. In 2024, the procuratorial organs prosecuted 825 individuals for securities-related crimes such as financial fraud and insider trading, and 3,032 individuals for money laundering crimes involving the use of "virtual currency" to transfer criminal proceeds.

ChainCatcher news reports that according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice, the United States, along with Germany and Finland, has successfully dismantled and seized the online infrastructure of the cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. Since April 2019, the exchange has processed at least $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions and has been accused of providing money laundering services to transnational criminal organizations, including terrorist groups, and violating sanctions.At the same time, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has filed a lawsuit against two administrators of Garantex: 46-year-old Lithuanian national Aleksej Besciokov and 40-year-old Russian national residing in the UAE, Aleksandr Mira Serda. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, and Besciokov is additionally charged with conspiracy to violate sanctions and operating an unlicensed money transmission business.Court documents show that from 2019 to 2025, the two defendants controlled and operated Garantex, knowingly allowing the platform to be used for money laundering while taking steps to conceal the illegal activities. Despite the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioning Garantex on April 5, 2022, the defendants continued to transact with U.S. entities and redesigned their operations to evade sanctions, including changing cryptocurrency wallet addresses daily to avoid detection and blocking by U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges.U.S. law enforcement has seized three domain names: Garantex.org, Garantex.io, and Garantex.academy, frozen over $26 million in funds used for money laundering, and obtained server copies that include customer and accounting databases. If convicted, the two defendants face a maximum of 20 years in prison.

According to ChainCatcher news, reported by Decrypt, U.S. authorities have offered a reward of $10 million for the capture of former Canadian Olympic snowboarder Ryan Wedding. Wedding is accused of being heavily involved in operating a multinational cocaine empire. The FBI announced on Thursday that it has placed this Canadian on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list in order to apprehend him as soon as possible.In October 2024, the Department of Justice filed criminal charges against Wedding and 15 other defendants, accusing them of leading the group and committing multiple atrocities during drug trafficking. U.S. authorities claim that Wedding is suspected of using his criminal organization to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and fentanyl into North America and orchestrating multiple murders to protect his business. It is alleged that Wedding used USDT for money laundering and to circumvent traditional banking systems.

ChainCatcher news, according to the Korea Economic TV, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Financial Services Commission of Korea held a "Anti-Money Laundering Trustee Meeting" to discuss regulatory plans against new types of money laundering methods such as virtual asset trading.The FIU will focus on cracking down on money laundering activities using virtual accounts and simple remittances, conducting special operations once a month to analyze suspicious transactions related to crimes such as voice phishing, pyramid schemes, and gambling targeting vulnerable groups. The Financial Supervisory Service stated that it will strengthen inspections of companies with insufficient implementation of anti-money laundering systems and promote cooperation between consumer protection departments and anti-money laundering departments.

ChainCatcher news, according to NetEase Qingliu Studio, Wang Shuiming, a native of Anxi, Fujian, who was arrested in connection with Singapore's largest money laundering case, has been captured in Montenegro and will be extradited back to China. Wang Shuiming's partner, Su Weiyi, has been confirmed as the mastermind behind the Hong Kong cryptocurrency platform scam AAX, and was arrested by Hong Kong police in July 2024.In November 2022, Atom Asset Exchange suddenly became unable to process withdrawals and subsequently collapsed, with Su Weiyi absconding with 16.74 million Hong Kong dollars (approximately 15.675 million RMB). In July 2024, Su Weiyi was arrested by Hong Kong police. It is worth mentioning that Su Weiyi co-owns other companies with other partners, who are linked to the convicted former Filipino mayor Alice Guo (Guo Huaping).On August 15, 2023, over 400 Singaporean police launched a raid, successfully cracking down on the largest money laundering case in Singapore's history, involving an amount of 3 billion Singapore dollars (approximately 16 billion RMB). The Singapore police arrested 10 suspects on the spot. These suspects, aged between 31 and 44, are all originally from Fujian and are referred to by outsiders as the "Fujian Gang." They held passports from multiple countries and used forged documents, shell companies, and cryptocurrencies to "clean" the proceeds from illegal gambling and fraud in Southeast Asia, investing in high-end assets in Singapore and overseas.According to the investigation results of the Singapore police, Wang Shuiming also possesses substantial assets outside of Singapore. Domestically, Wang Shuiming's company has an investment amount of up to 32 million RMB; he owns a factory worth several million RMB; he has two apartments in Xiamen worth a total of 20 million RMB; and there is a bank account in Hong Kong under Wang Shuiming with a deposit of 2 million Hong Kong dollars and cryptocurrencies valued at 110,000 USD.

According to ChainCatcher's message, on-chain analyst Yu Jin has monitored that since 3 PM yesterday, the Bybit hacker has resumed money laundering activities, having laundered 62,200 ETH (approximately 138 million USD).Currently, of the 499,000 ETH stolen from Bybit, only 156,000 ETH (approximately 346 million USD) remains unprocessed.At the current rate of money laundering, it is expected that the remaining stolen funds will be completely cleared within three days.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the Bybit hacker has suspended the transfer and laundering of ETH since 3 PM yesterday, so only 14,300 ETH (worth about 32.2 million USD) has been laundered in the past 24 hours. Now there are still 218,000 ETH (worth about 486.6 million USD) in the hacker's address.

ChainCatcher news, according to monitoring by Spot on Chain, the Bybit hacker has successfully laundered 50% of the stolen ETH.In the past 5 and a half days, the Bybit hacker has laundered a total of 266,309 ETH (approximately $614 million), accounting for 53.3% of the 499,000 ETH stolen, averaging 48,420 ETH laundered per day, mostly converted to BTC through THORChain. At the current rate, the remaining 233,086 ETH could be fully laundered in just 5 days.

ChainCatcher news, according to Arkham data, as of now, wallets marked as Lazarus Group have transferred over $240 million in ETH through THORChain. These funds have mainly been exchanged for native BTC.In addition, THORChain's chief developer @Pluto9r announced his departure (after 4 years in office). THORChain network core validator TCB (@1984_is_today) revealed that most of THORChain's activities stem from the largest financial heist in human history, involving money laundering activities by North Korean hackers, which will become a national security issue.Previously reported, THORChain is currently facing insolvency, with savings and loan functions suspended, and plans to address a $200 million debt crisis by issuing equity tokens.

ChainCatcher News, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that a Montana man has been convicted of cryptocurrency money laundering. After three days of trial, 73-year-old Randall V. Rule (formerly of Kalispell, Montana) was found guilty on all counts by the jury.On November 16, 2022, a federal grand jury indictment charged Randall V. Rule and former Irmo, South Carolina resident Gregory C. Nysewander with conspiracy to launder money, money laundering, and conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act.According to the indictment, Rule and Nysewander conspired with others to launder the proceeds of telemarketing and mail fraud through cryptocurrency. The defendants converted funds into cryptocurrency and sent the cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by domestic and foreign co-conspirators. The defendants made false statements and concealed material facts to avoid detection of the fraudulent nature of the deposits, wire transfers, and transactions. The defendants also made false statements and concealed material facts when filling out account opening documents and communicating with financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the hacker involved in the Bybit theft incident laundered ETH into BTC through THORChain, bringing THORChain a trading volume of $2.91 billion and $3 million in fee revenue.Data shows that the hacker began the money laundering operation on February 22, contributing a significant amount of transactions to THORChain over a period of 5 days. Prior to this, THORChain's average daily trading volume was about $80 million, which surged to $580 million during the hacker's activity.

ChainCatcher news, according to Lookonchain monitoring, the internal teams of LIBRA and MELANIA are laundering money through "wash trading."It is reported that the team spent 19,846 SOL (approximately 2.76 million USD) to purchase a meme coin (POPE) with a market value of less than 150,000 USD, and ultimately sold it for 175 SOL (approximately 24,000 USD), incurring a loss of 2.73 million USD, which was effectively transferred to other wallets in a "legitimate" manner.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, blockchain analysis company Elliptic has discovered that North Korean hackers involved in the Bybit hack control over 11,000 cryptocurrency wallets for money laundering.

ChainCatcher message, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou posted on social media, "The Lazarus hacker group's bounty website is now live, showcasing transparent data about Lazarus's money laundering activities."The total bounty is 10% of the recovered funds, and if all funds are recovered, the total bounty could reach up to $140 million. The specific distribution is as follows: 5% to the entities that successfully freeze the funds, and 5% to the contributors who help track the funds.

ChainCatcher message, eXch stated in a post on the Bitcointalk forum, "The platform will not launder for Lazarus; contrary opinions are just the views of some people who wish for the interchangeability and on-chain privacy of decentralized currency to disappear. These individuals have long hated decentralized cryptocurrencies."eXch acknowledged that a small portion of the funds from the ByBit hack ultimately entered its platform address, but claimed that this transfer was "an isolated case." The eXch team promised to donate the proceeds to "various open-source projects dedicated to privacy and security both within and outside the crypto space."Previously, according to Slow Mist's Yu Xin, given that a considerable amount of ETH has already been laundered through eXch and exchanged for BTC, XMR, etc., all platforms should raise their risk control levels for funds originating from eXch.

ChainCatcher news, on-chain detective ZachXBT disclosed in a personal channel that a certain entity is laundering money for the Bybit hack incident by issuing and trading meme coins on pump.fun.On February 22, the attacker received $1.08 million in funds from the Bybit hack incident through the address "0x363908...d7d1", and then cross-chain transferred USDC to the Solana chain. The entire USDC on the Solana chain was then cross-chain transferred to two addresses on the BSC chain. These two BSC addresses programmatically dispersed the USDC to over 30 addresses before finally consolidating. After that, 106,000 USDC was split into 10 BSC addresses and cross-chain transferred back to 10 Solana addresses. The money launderer exchanged the obtained SOL for meme coins.15 hours ago, on-chain detective ZachXBT publicly revealed over 920 addresses that received funds from the Bybit hack, and discovered that a certain money launderer had issued meme coins for the North Korean hacker organization Lazarus Group through the pump.fun platform. For security reasons, specific wallet addresses are not disclosed at this time, and multiple analysis tools have been requested to take down related interfaces.

ChainCatcher news, according to on-chain data, the Bybit attacker is suspected of laundering money by issuing Meme tokens on Pump.Fun.It is reported that the attacker transferred SOL tokens to a certain address before launching the Meme coin. Currently, the market capitalization of the related Meme coin has reached approximately 2.2 million dollars, with a trading volume of about 26 million dollars, but liquidity is low. Community users are advised to be cautious in their interactions.