“White Hat” crypto lawyer Dr. Jonathan Levy who represents dozens of victims of crypto crime with losses totaling over $25 million has announced that notorious bitmixing site bitblender.co has had its domain suspended as a result of a lawsuit filed on behalf of a hacking victim who had 996 BTC disappear from his wallet.
The
suit alleges the criminal group known as the Bitcoin Blender
Organization maintained the now suspended bitblender.co and the still
operating bitblender.io as the
public face of their dark web operations which laundered the still
missing 996 BTC.
A terse message from PublicDomainRegistry states: “We have reviewed your complaint and pursuant to our terms of service, have suspended the reported domain name ‘bitblender.co.” Dr. Levy reports the takedown was triggered by a lawsuit against the Bitcoin Blender Organization being served on its domain privacy provider in the United States.
According
to Dr. Levy bitmixing is but one symptom of a larger crime problem
plaguing cryptocurrencies, the situation is critical because crypto
exchanges and wallets
have for years been routinely accepting deposits from professional
crypto laundering outfits like Bitblender while providing no relief to
the victims of crypto hacks, extortion, fraud and ransomware. According
to Dr. Levy: “The Bitcoin blockchain and cryptocurrencies
in general are being misused by criminals to launder the proceeds of
crypto crime with the full knowledge and participation of the exchanges
and nodes who have become by default the participants in these crimes by
failing to implement even the simplest anti
money laundering measures and by inexplicably refusing to set aside
funds to reimburse victims. For reasons of expediency and profit, the
nodes and exchanges have failed to act even though Bitblender operates
in the open.”
Bitblender.io
boasts it is the “#1 Bitcoin Mixer on the Darknet.” Bitblender claims
to use smart technology to erase Bitcoin history and make transactions
100% anonymous
in effect laundering Bitcoins. Bitblender erases the previous
blockchain and then redeposits the Bitcoins under a new profile. Levy
estimates 99% of the Bitblender transactions are criminal in nature and
that several billion dollars of Bitcoins have been
laundered in the past few years . Although there has been some movement
by EUROPOL to contain bitmixing, Levy contends the criminals have
simply changed their coordinates and the unimpeded presence of
bitcoin.io supports that premise.
Dr.
Levy has been in communication with the British officials who are
responsible for the secretive .io top level domain and has expressed
puzzlement why no action
has been taken to date: “The UK authorities have been briefed on
numerous occasions, yet they take no action against bitblender.io and
other .io fraudsters; this is part of our pending complaint to the
European Union Commission.”
Dr.
Levy promises this is but a foretaste of what lies ahead: “Victims of
crypto crime are fed up with not only the criminals but the do-nothing
national authorities.
Organized crime has reaped a windfall of billions of dollars. We will
seek compensation from all those responsible for the operation of
cryptocurrencies including the voluntary associations of nodes who run
the cryptocurrencies behind the scenes.”
The lawsuit is
Crypto Currency Resolution Trust v. Bitcoin Blender Organization.
https://tinyurl.com/cryptoblender
The mass crypto crime victim claim to the European Union Commission is In Re: Cryptocurrency Victim Claims – A Request for Consultation and Remediation.
Dated and signed letter EU response July 9, 2019
Request for Consultation
Request
for Consultation – Victims Reply
For more information contact:
Dr. Jonathan Levy
T. +44 (0) 20 8144 2479
[email protected]
[email protected]
Dr. Jon Levy is a solicitor who specialises in transnational law and private international law. He has represented the former president of the Republic of China, Chen Shuibian, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, and numerous African entities and political figures. He has been engaged by clients against the US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), CIA, US Army, and UK Cabinet. As a litigator he specialises in transnational asset recovery and has taken up cases against the Vatican Bank, UBS AG, the Swiss National Bank, Emaar Corporation, and many others.