🕵️♂️🎩 A ragtag team of 113 journalists from 37 media outlets across 35 countries spent months playing “Where’s Waldo?” with $4 billion in crypto transactions. Spoiler: Waldo was hiding in plain sight, sipping margaritas with drug cartels, human traffickers, and North Korean hackers. 🍹💣
Criminal Networks: The World Tour 🌍
From North Korea’s “cyber ninjas” (read: hackers in hoodies) to Russian mobsters moonlighting as North Korean weapons dealers, the globe’s worst villains are ditching briefcases for Bitcoin. The Sinaloa cartel? They’re just here for the blockchain buffet. 🌮🔪
Enter Cambodia’s Huione Group, the “laundering laundromat” of crypto crime. Despite being labeled a “primary money laundering concern” by the U.S. in 2025, they kept pumping $1 million daily into exchanges like it’s a ”Buy One, Get One Free” sale. 🧼💰
Between 2021 and 2025, Huione “washed” $4 billion-enough to buy every person on Earth a Happy Meal (no toy included). Highlights: $37M from North Korea’s “cyber heists” and $36M from “pig butchering” scams. 🐷🔪
Exchanges: The Good, The Bad, and The “We Pledged Guilty, So What?” 🤷♀️
Binance, fresh off a 2023 guilty plea, welcomed $408M from Huione like a rehab patient inviting their dealer to a pool party. 🏊♂️🚷
OKX? They doubled down on their “bad boy” image after a February 2025 guilty plea for illegal money transmission. $226M from Huione? “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” they said, while cashing the check. 🐒💸
Binance’s Sinaloa connection? A cartel money launderer received $700K via Coinbase accounts. 🤯 Meanwhile, a Russian hacker allegedly funding North Korea’s missile program had an HTX account. 🚀💳
Crypto-to-Cash: The Wild West (But With More Telegram) 📲
Forget banks-criminals now use “crypto-to-cash” services that make the Gold Rush look tame. In Toronto, a reporter sent $2K in Tether to “001k” and got cash in exchange for a photo of a $5 bill’s serial number. 🖼️💵
Hong Kong? They’re the “Walmart of Laundering,” processing $2.5B in 2024. 001k alone moved $14.8B since 2022. 🧨🛒
Victim Impact: When Love Scams Cost More Than Your Ex 💔
American victims lost $9.3B in 2024-67% higher than 2023. That’s half of Madoff’s lifetime achievements! 🧨
Meet Asako Nishizaki, who lost her home and $30K to romance scammers. Her sons? Ghosting her since 2024. 💔
Brooklyn DA Alona Katz calls explaining crypto theft to elderly victims “like telling a kid Santa’s not real. But worse.” 🎁💀
Regulatory Whack-a-Mole 🕳️
Despite $5.8B in fines, crypto criminals are still out here playing 4D chess. Former exchange workers admit: “We couldn’t even keep up with the ”Winnie the Pooh: Dark Web Edition” money laundering tactics.” 🐻
Trump’s 2025 pardon of Binance’s Changpeng Zhao? A masterclass in “Do the crime, do the time… unless you’re rich and crypto.” 🍿
Blockchain: The Ultimate “Trust No One” Fairy Tale 🧙♀️
The ICIJ investigation proves crypto’s a parallel universe where criminals zip around faster than Usain Bolt on Red Bull. 🏃♂️⚡
Estimates say 2024’s illicit crypto volume could hit $51B. 🚀
Digital Reckoning: The Sequel No One Wanted 🎬
“Coin Laundry” shows crypto’s the gift that keeps on giving-if you’re a hacker, cartel, or con artist. 🎁
As governments play “Regulatory Whack-a-Mole,” one thing’s clear: Without stricter rules, crypto’s future looks like a Bond villain’s wet dream. 🐱
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2025-11-18 04:08