The Coin Laundry exposes how cryptocurrency companies have empowered a shadow economy that lavishly profits from crime.

Led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Coin Laundry is a groundbreaking cross-border investigation that reveals how many of these companies make money off the proceeds of scams, theft and other crimes — while those who’ve lost their savings or livelihoods are left with little hope of justice.

Over 10 months of reporting, ICIJ and 37 media partners in 35 countries gathered hundreds of cryptocurrency wallet addresses — analogous to bank account numbers — linked to known illicit activity. Journalists collected them from scam victims, police reports, court records, sanctions lists, complaints filed with Seychelles’ financial regulator and from test transactions with crypto services, among other sources.

Reporters then disentangled tens of thousands of transactions recorded across public blockchains — the digital ledgers of crypto trades — to expose the global financial flows behind money laundering networks, cyber heists and other criminal enterprises. Journalists interviewed dozens of scam victims across 12 countries and followed their crypto transfers to some of the world’s largest exchanges. ICIJ and its partners worked with more than two dozen blockchain analysts to review and verify the findings.

 

The Coin Laundry found that money launderers for drug traffickers and Southeast Asian scam center operators and North Korean hackers used brand-name exchanges to move their funds.

A trailblazing analysis by ICIJ revealed that as recently as July 2025, Huione Group, a Cambodian financial institution flagged by U.S. authorities two months earlier as a “primary money laundering concern,” sent about a million dollars worth of the digital currency tether a day to accounts at Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In total, ICIJ’s review uncovered more than $408 million flowing from Huione to customer accounts at Binance from July 2024 to July 2025.

Hundreds of millions of dollars flowed from Huione into Binance customer accounts while the company was under the supervision of two court-appointed monitors. The monitors were part of Binance’s November 2023 plea deal for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws. Binance agreed to pay $4.3 billion, one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history.

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The analysis found that at least $226 million also flowed into customer accounts at OKX, another major cryptocurrency exchange, from Huione during the five months after OKX pleaded guilty in the U.S. in February to operating an unlicensed money transmitter. OKX agreed to pay more than $504 million in penalties. The transfers from Huione continued after its May designation as a “primary money laundering concern.”

The Coin Laundry also examined a shadowy constellation of so-called cash desks and courier services that allow people to anonymously cash out huge sums of cryptocurrency outside the view of financial regulators. Found in Hong Kong, Toronto, London, Istanbul and other cities, they are a new and largely unpoliced hotspot for laundering money.

To uncover the use of cryptocurrency to supersize scams, ICIJ and its partners examined an alleged pyramid and Ponzi scheme that stiffed victims all over the world. Its mastermind, Vladimir Okhotnikov, 47, is accused of using a rigged cryptocurrency investment platform to steal at least $340 million from investors between 2020 and 2022.

U.S. prosecutors indicted Okhotnikov in 2023 over the alleged scam, but he remains free in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where he continues launching similar schemes, promoted with flashy celebrity-studded events, social media campaigns, and a film co-written by Okhotnikov and directed by Oscar winner Kevin Spacey, set to be released in December.

‘Gone in the blink of an eye’

Cryptocurrency boosters say digital coins and tokens are easier to monitor than government-issued money because transactions are recorded on a blockchain. But complex crypto transactions can be hard for authorities to act on because many pass through anonymous digital wallets. Tools like “swappers” —  software that lets users automatically switch cryptocurrencies without identity checks — can also increase the difficulty of tracing.

The resources required to accurately trace transactions make the task difficult for both crypto trading platforms and law enforcement. More than a dozen former compliance workers at major exchanges, including OKX and Binance, told ICIJ and its partner The Toronto Star that they could hardly keep pace with savvy criminals.

In theory, it’s the job of regulators around the world to make sure crypto firms are meeting their legal obligations to combat money laundering. But in practice, a patchwork of laws and fragmented enforcement efforts often mean less government oversight for an industry where the largest actors facilitated tens of trillions of dollars in trading volume last year.

An ICIJ analysis shows that authorities around the world have levied at least $5.8 billion in fines, penalties and settlements so far against cryptocurrency trading platforms, also known as exchanges. Meanwhile, crypto-related losses for consumers and businesses are mounting. In the U.S. alone, the FBI estimates Americans lost $9.3 billion to crypto crimes in 2024, a 67% increase from 2023. That’s roughly half the amount criminal financier Bernie Madoff collected from investors in his four-decades-long Ponzi scheme.

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Many of those on the cybercrime front lines say they lack the training to trace stolen cryptocurrency. And even those who do, like Alona Katz, chief of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office’s Virtual Currency Unit, are rarely able to recover lost funds for victims partly because the suspected scammers are often in countries beyond their jurisdiction. Katz has had to explain this to victims.

“It’s more devastating than I can even put a word on,” she said. “I have spoken to people in their 80s who are preparing to file bankruptcy for the first time … young adults who thought they were helping their family and emptied out the family’s common bank account.

“When you are the bearer of the bad news, that everything they have worked for their entire lives, their entire life was gone in the blink of an eye, I mean, there are no good words.”

The Coin Laundry’s deep dive into the ways criminals exploit the mechanisms and vulnerabilities of decentralized finance comes at a critical time in the global debate over how to stanch the flow of dirty money in cryptocurrency. Governments worldwide have struggled to adapt. Consumer protection and transparency rules took effect in Europe at the end of 2024, but advocates say they don’t do enough to protect users. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has overseen a rollback of enforcement actions against the crypto industry, including his October pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who served time in federal prison after he and his company pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws.

The Coin Laundry investigation is brought to you by:

The ICIJ team

Director: Gerard Ryle

Managing editor: Fergus Shiel

Deputy managing editor: Annys Shin

Lead reporter: Spencer Woodman

Senior editors: Whitney Joiner, David Rowell, Dean Starkman

Editors: Joanna Robin, Tom Stites

Head of data and research: Delphine Reuter

Deputy head of data and research: Karrie Kehoe

Data and research team: Denise Ajiri, Agustin Armendariz, Jelena Cosic, Jesús Escudero, Miguel Fiandor Gutiérrez

Reporters: Scilla Alecci, Isabella Cota, Ben Dooley, Roy W. Howard Fellow Sam Ellefson, Brenda Medina, Fergus Shiel, Spencer Woodman

Associate editors and fact checkers: Kathleen Cahill, Richard H.P. Sia

Copy editor: Angie Wu

Head of digital and product: Hamish Boland-Rudder

Digital editor: Joanna Robin

Digital producer: Carmen Molina Acosta

Web developer: Antonio Cucho Gamboa

Social media producer: Daniela Vivas Labrador

Chief technology officer: Pierre Romera Zhang

Deputy chief technology officer: Caroline Desprat

Technology team: Soline Ledésert, Bruno Thomas, Maxime Vanza Lutonda, Whitney Awanayah, Javier Ladrón de Guevara, Jorge González, Carolina Verónica López Cotán, Clément Doumouro, Marie Gillier

Design and illustration: Ben King, Fredy Delgado Jr.

Training manager: Jelena Cosic

The investigation team

  • Fiona Buffini (Australian Financial Review) Australia
  • Daniel Reti (Australian Financial Review) Australia
  • Lucy King (Australian Financial Review) Australia
  • Gerard Ryle (ICIJ) Australia
  • Hamish Boland-Rudder (ICIJ) Australia
  • Josef Redl (profil) Austria
  • Stefan Melichar (profil) Austria
  • Lars Bové (De Tijd) Belgium
  • Delphine Reuter (ICIJ) Belgium
  • Kristof Clerix (Knack) Belgium
  • Frédéric Zalac (CBC/Radio-Canada) Canada
  • Jeff Yates (CBC/Radio-Canada) Canada
  • Yanick Rose (CBC/Radio-Canada) Canada
  • Zach Dubinsky (CBC/Radio-Canada) Canada
  • Hugo Joncas (La Presse) Canada
  • Emma McIntosh (The Toronto Star) Canada
  • Jesse McLean (The Toronto Star) Canada
  • Sheila Wang (The Toronto Star) Canada
  • Alberto Arellano (CIPER) Chile
  • Francisca Skoknic (Fundación Periodística LaBot) Chile
  • Carlos Eduardo Huertas (Revista Vistazo – El Espectador – CONNECTAS) Colombia
  • Juan David Olmos (Revista Vistazo – El Espectador – CONNECTAS) Colombia
  • Gisella A. Rojas (Revista Vistazo – El Espectador – CONNECTAS) Ecuador
  • Patricia Estupiñán De Burbano (Revista Vistazo – El Espectador – CONNECTAS) Ecuador
  • Bruno Thomas (ICIJ) France
  • Caroline Desprat (ICIJ) France
  • Clément Doumouro (ICIJ) France
  • Dean Starkman (ICIJ) France
  • Marie Gillier (ICIJ) France
  • Maxime Vanza Lutonda (ICIJ) France
  • Pierre Romera Zhang (ICIJ) France
  • Soline Ledésert (ICIJ) France
  • Abdelhak El Idrissi (Le Monde) France
  • Florian Reynaud (Le Monde) France
  • Jérémie Baruch (Le Monde) France
  • Maxime Tellier (Radio France) France
  • Nino Zuriashvili  (Studio Monitor) Georgia
  • Benedikt Strunz (Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)) Germany
  • Catharina Felke (Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR)) Germany
  • Jörg Schmitt (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Germany
  • Lea Weinmann (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Germany
  • Mauritius Much (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Germany
  • Nils Heck (Süddeutsche Zeitung) Germany
  • Petra Blum (Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR)) Germany
  • Collin Furtado (Tech in Asia) India
  • Jay Mazoomdaar (The Indian Express) India
  • Mahender Singh Manral (The Indian Express) India
  • Ritu Sarin (The Indian Express) India
  • Soumyarendra Barik (The Indian Express) India
  • Karrie Kehoe (ICIJ) Ireland
  • Uri Blau (Shomrim) Israel
  • Scilla Alecci (ICIJ) Italy
  • Gloria Riva (L’Espresso) Italy
  • Leo Sisti (L’Espresso) Italy
  • Paolo Biondani (L’Espresso) Italy
  • Naoki Inoue (Nippon TV) Japan
  • Shinichiro Ochi (Nippon TV) Japan
  • Tatsuhiro Ogawa (Nippon TV) Japan
  • Eric Mugendi (Africa Uncensored) Kenya
  • Felix Muthoka (Africa Uncensored) Kenya
  • Tracy Bonareri (Africa Uncensored) Kenya
  • Šarūnas Černiauskas (Siena ) Lithuania
  • Dania Kamal Aryf (Malaysiakini) Malaysia
  • Hariz Mohd (Malaysiakini) Malaysia
  • Ling Fong Ng (Malaysiakini) Malaysia
  • Zikri Kamarulzaman (Malaysiakini) Malaysia
  • Scott Shuey (Tech in Asia) Malaysia
  • Jacob Borg (Times of Malta) Malta
  • Isabella Cota (ICIJ) Mexico
  • Gaby de Groot (Het Financieele Dagblad) Netherlands
  • Sonny Motke (Het Financieele Dagblad) Netherlands
  • Justin Wong (The Post/Stuff) New Zealand
  • Elyssa Lopez (Tech in Asia) Philippines
  • Micael Pereira (Expresso) Portugal
  • Jelena Cosic (ICIJ) Serbia
  • Micah Reddy (ICIJ) South Africa
  • Hyeon-suk Kang (Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ)-Newstapa) South Korea
  • Jiyoon Kim (Korea Center for Investigative Journalism (KCIJ)-Newstapa) South Korea
  • Carolina Verónica López Cotán (ICIJ) Spain
  • Javier Ladrón de Guevara (ICIJ) Spain
  • Jesús Escudero (ICIJ) Spain
  • Miguel Fiandor Gutiérrez (ICIJ) Spain
  • Joachim Dyfvermark (SVT) Sweden
  • Christian Broennimann (Tamedia) Switzerland
  • Joan Plancade (Tamedia) Switzerland
  • Oliver Zihlmann (Tamedia) Switzerland
  • Sylvain Besson (Tamedia) Switzerland
  • Pelin Ünker (DW Turkish) Türkiye
  • Matei Rosca (Freelance) U.K.
  • Anna Babinets (Slidstvo.info) Ukraine
  • Yaroslava Nikitiuk (Slidstvo.info) Ukraine
  • Guillermo Draper (Búsqueda) Uruguay
  • Agustin Armendariz (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Angie Wu (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Annys Shin (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Antonio Cucho (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Ben Dooley (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Brenda Medina (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Carmen Molina Acosta (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Daniela Vivas Labrador (ICIJ) U.S.
  • David Kenner (ICIJ) U.S.
  • David Rowell (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Denise Ajiri (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Fergus Shiel (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Joanna Robin (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Kathleen Cahill (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Richard H.P. Sia (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Sam Ellefson (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Spencer Woodman (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Tom Stites (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Whitney Awanayah (ICIJ) U.S.
  • Whitney Joiner (ICIJ) U.S.
  • David Yaffe-Bellany (The New York Times) U.S.