The European Law Enforcement Agency, Europol, has arrested 17 individuals for running a crypto-based money laundering network, which was used to launder about $23 million (over 21 million euros).
As revealed by the agency, the suspects were dispersed across different countries in the continent. Thus, it collaborated with Spanish authorities to arrest 15 suspects, while Belgian and Austrian police apprehended two more in their respective regions.
17 Man Crackdown
Remarkably, the 17 suspects were not Europeans. The group consisted of Chinese and Syrians who provided money laundering services such as cash collection, crypto swapping, cash courier services, parallel banking services, and illegal hawala banking to criminals.
Moreover, the criminal operation had two branches. One serviced Arabic-speaking criminals, while the other branch was focused on Chinese criminals in the region. The criminal group publicized its money laundering services on social media to extend its customer reach, promoting it as a legitimate platform for international transactions.
As revealed by Europol, the agency carried out the operation in January and seized over $5 million (4.5 million euros) of stolen funds in the form of cryptocurrencies, real estate items, vehicles, and cash from the suspects. They also confiscated four shotguns, luxury pieces of jewelry, and a handful of electronic devices.
Crypto Adoption in Europe
While many crypto companies are based in America, a few have expanded into Europe, establishing subsidiaries and introducing some new features to the European market. One of these is the American financial services firm, Robinhood.
Following user demand to freely transact their digital asset holdings, Robinhood Crypto, the crypto arm of Robinhood, introduced cryptocurrency transfers for its European-based customers in late 2024. Thus, its mobile app features withdrawals, deposits, and transfers of 24 selected digital assets for all European users.
In Q1 2025, BlackRock, a famous U.S. asset manager and crypto investment funds issuer, entered the European financial market with a new bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded product (ETP). The newly launched investment product is known as BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETP and trades on major European financial exchanges, including Xetra, Euronext Paris, and Euronext Amsterdam, under the tickers IBIT and BTCN, respectively.
