illegal

According to The Block, TRM Labs has launched a custody service called Beacon Concierge, aimed at assisting law enforcement agencies in collaborating with cryptocurrency exchanges and stablecoin issuers to prevent and seize illegal cryptocurrency flows on any chain or asset.Beacon has over 200 members, covering 80% of cryptocurrency trading volume, with response times measured in minutes.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) of India raided locations related to CoinDCX and Delta, accusing them of unauthorized cross-border transactions. CoinDCX stated that they are cooperating with the inquiry, have registered with FIU-IND, and are complying with foreign exchange management laws, with transactions and deposits being normal.

On-chain detective ZachXBT stated that the $16 billion in illegal transactions involving the cryptocurrency exchange MEXC, as pointed out by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), may be overstated. He noted that MEXC's past anti-money laundering and customer identification policies have been relatively lax, but he hopes to see relevant data, the proportion of suspected illegal transaction amounts to MEXC's total trading volume, and comparisons with other exchanges.ZachXBT also questioned why some offshore exchanges, which have almost no business in the U.S., quickly cut off channels for MEXC users to transfer assets, and who these measures are actually protecting.

On Friday, the Paris Criminal Court sentenced a Ukrainian man to 5 years in prison, including 2 years of actual imprisonment and 3 years of probation. The man was accused of illegally generating and stealing 1 billion Holograph (HLG) tokens, valued at approximately 14 million dollars at the time of the incident, by exploiting a security loophole in the company he previously worked for between May and August 2024.The court found that the man illegally issued 1 billion HLG tokens by tampering with the token generation conditions on the platform and transferred the tokens to a personal wallet. He then, along with two accomplices, dispersed the funds to multiple cryptocurrency exchange platform accounts. His two accomplices were sentenced to 2 years in prison (with 14 months probation) and fined 80,000 euros, as well as 2 years of probationary imprisonment and fined 40,000 euros.In addition, the court rejected the Holograph Foundation's request for compensation for the losses due to the token price crash, stating that the price of HLG had already fluctuated and dropped significantly before the incident, making it impossible to establish a direct causal relationship between the subsequent depreciation and the fraudulent act. After the incident, the price of HLG fell from nearly 0.03 dollars in May 2024 to 0.001 dollars by the end of December of the same year.

According to a notice from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, as part of the "Economic Exile Action," FinCEN issued an order against the cryptocurrency exchange MEXC Global under Section 9714(a) of the Anti-Money Laundering Act concerning Russia, prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from conducting any fund transfers with it, thereby cutting off its access to the U.S. financial system. The order will take effect 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register.The Treasury stated that between May 2021 and May 2026, MEXC Global facilitated at least $16 billion in transactions related to sanctions evasion and cybercrime involving Iran, North Korea, and Russia, including approximately $22 million in transactions related to the Central Bank of Iran and the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as nearly $1.5 billion in transactions related to sanctions evasion concerning Russia.

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released a new report titled "Combating the Full Chain of Illegal Fund Flows Related to Scam Hubs," calling on countries to take globally coordinated action to dismantle scam parks and their criminal networks.The report points out that criminals use channels such as cash, virtual assets, and instant payment platforms to launder money, and leverage AI, deep forgery, and automation technologies to scale up their operations. Among these, virtual assets have become the core channel for money laundering; in some cases, scam hubs even have dedicated over-the-counter trading counters for handling virtual asset exchanges and domestic fund transfers.In one case, blockchain analysis revealed that the total amount of funds sent in by victims exceeded $100 million, ultimately flowing into a cluster of virtual asset wallets associated with a particular scam hub.To address this, the FATF proposed six core principles, including focusing on a broader criminal ecosystem, end-to-end disruption of illegal fund flows, enhancing interdepartmental information sharing and cooperation, rapid cross-border action (especially within 24-72 hours after an incident), a victim-centered approach, and continuously adapting to changes in criminal methods.

The state of Arkansas in the United States has filed a lawsuit against the prediction market platform Kalshi, demanding that it cease the alleged illegal gambling activities. The state seeks compensation, recovery of unpaid taxes, and civil penalties in the lawsuit.Meanwhile, Kalshi continues to advance its federal appeal regarding the enforcement issues of gambling laws in various states.

According to Bloomberg, the T3 Financial Crime Unit, initiated by several leading companies in the cryptocurrency industry, has quietly disbanded, with no specific reasons disclosed at this time.The alliance was jointly established in September 2024 by the organization behind the Tron blockchain, stablecoin issuer Tether, and blockchain analytics company TRM Labs, aiming to create a "safer and more reliable" cryptocurrency industry. Binance joined in September 2025, and at that time, the alliance stated that it had collaborated with law enforcement agencies to freeze a total of $250 million in illegal assets globally.

On October 30, 2026, Zhu Hexin, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, presided over a Party Leadership Group meeting to convey and study General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party and the spirit of the plenary session, and to research and deploy the implementation work. Members of the Party Leadership Group of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange attended the meeting.The meeting required resolute implementation of the major decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee. It emphasized the serious implementation of the "14th Five-Year Plan" requirements, improving a more convenient, open, secure, and intelligent foreign exchange management system and mechanism, promoting deep-level reforms and high-level openness in the foreign exchange field, effectively managing the "five major tasks" of finance, maintaining the stability of the foreign exchange market and the national economic and financial security, severely cracking down on illegal cross-border financial activities, strengthening the capacity building for foreign exchange reserve management, and effectively following the path of financial development with Chinese characteristics.

The International Criminal Police Organization stated that Operation Serengeti III took place from June 29 to August 31, 2026, across 21 countries, resulting in the arrest of 1,462 suspects, the dismantling of 10,909 malicious networks, and the recovery of over 105 million dollars in illegal funds. The investigation also confirmed that 65,929 victims were attacked by cybercrime gangs, with related losses exceeding 385 million dollars.This operation focused on combating online fraud, ransomware, business email compromise, online scams, and digital extortion. In specific cases, the Ugandan police dismantled two transnational fraud gangs and arrested 365 foreign nationals; Angola seized two illegal cryptocurrency mining centers, arrested 9 individuals, and confiscated over 2,000 mining machines; in Nigeria, another case involved over 2.4 million dollars in suspected criminal proceeds, a significant portion of which was laundered through cryptocurrency transactions.

On-chain detective ZachXBT stated that in August 2026, a centralized money laundering service named FreedomXMR (FXMR) appeared on Hyperliquid Core (HL Core). Over 87% of its incoming funds are directly related to illegal activities.Through manual verification, it was found that among all historical inflows over $10,000 to FXMR, more than $20 million directly originated from ransomware attacks, exploits, malware, and social engineering attacks, including: the DCENT wallet exploit incident (September 2026), the Fetch.ai exploit incident (September 2026), the Axelar exploit incident (September 2026), a certain ransomware payment (September 2026, specific source undisclosed), and the Gamdom exploit incident (October 2026). The operators of this service obtained XMR liquidity from KuCoin (over 3,000 deposits), suspected of using a similar exchange model to Wagyu.The token name (ticker) FXMR was acquired by the operators at an HL auction on July 27, 2026, for 518.28 HYPE (approximately $28,000). Several such centralized money laundering services had previously appeared on HL Core, exploiting the chain's "permissionless" design features and its wide application for illegal money laundering activities. Relevant data tables have been shared with the Hyperliquid team.

According to the Shenzhen Economic Investigation Bureau, recent investors have suffered financial losses due to participating in investment scams under the guise of "RWA real estate tokenization." These scams typically use technical packaging such as "smart contract automatic dividends" and "blockchain browser verifiable" to lure investors into purchasing fictitious on-chain fragmented property rights. Once the funds are in place, they stop paying dividends and disappear.The Shenzhen Economic Investigation Bureau pointed out that the smart contract address and company registration information can only confirm the existence of the code and the business entity, and do not represent a real binding of underlying physical assets, nor do they indicate that the project has financial business qualifications. According to current regulatory regulations in China, any tokenized financing activities carried out domestically under the name of RWA are considered illegal financial activities. Virtual currencies do not have legal tender status, and related token issuance, financing, and trading speculation are not protected by law.

According to Philippine crypto media BitPinas, in response to CoinDesk's previous report regarding Coinsph facing the risk of license revocation due to alleged involvement in offshore betting transactions, the Philippine crypto trading platform Coinsph stated that its virtual asset service provider (VASP) license under Betur Inc. and the electronic money issuance (EMI) license of DCPay Philippines are currently both valid, and it denies providing services to non-compliant offshore betting operators.Coinsph stated that the restrictions imposed by the Philippine central bank only involve fiat currency top-ups to DCPay through InstaPay and PESONet, while cryptocurrency trading, withdrawals, and other payment services are still operating normally. The company also acknowledged that the central bank has requested it to improve its internal control measures and is currently cooperating with regulatory requirements. The Philippine central bank declined to comment on specific regulatory matters.

According to a report by the Korean News Agency, the Financial Services Commission of South Korea and the Financial Supervisory Service are strengthening monitoring of "perpetual contracts" linked to Korean stocks and stock indices traded through global virtual asset platforms.If illegal business activities targeting Korean residents, such as soliciting account openings or trading, are found on overseas platforms, the regulatory authorities will refer the matter to investigative agencies and take strict countermeasures.

According to a report by The Paper, the case of Qian Zhimin, involving over 40 billion yuan in illegal fundraising and more than 60,000 bitcoins, has seen new developments in domestic judicial procedures. The Tianjin Second Intermediate People's Court announced that it has accepted the Tianjin People's Procuratorate Second Branch's application to confiscate the illegal gains of the suspect Qian Zhimin as of September 28.According to the property confiscation list published by the Tianjin Second Intermediate Court, in addition to bitcoins, the involved virtual currencies also include 72,745.79502 bitcoins cash, 72,745.78555 bitcoins gold, 72,745.7845 bitcoins Satoshi Vision, 3,605,989.9995 ripples, and 70,081,208.62553222 dogecoins (which have been converted and deposited into an interest-bearing account by British judicial authorities). Additionally, the confiscated assets also include cash in US dollars, euros, and British pounds, jewelry, as well as bank balances and investment portfolios.The Tianjin People's Procuratorate Second Branch believes that Qian Zhimin is suspected of fundraising fraud, and after fleeing, he has been wanted for a year without appearing in court. There is evidence proving that over 61,800 bitcoins and other assets seized in the UK belong to illegal gains and their proceeds, and should be recovered along with the transformed and converted properties and proceeds, except for those legally returned to the harmed fundraising participants, which should be confiscated.

According to the 21st Century Business Herald, the Chaoyang Branch of the Beijing Public Security Bureau reported that it has recently filed a case for investigation into the suspected illegal activities of related companies of Yixin. Currently, several criminal suspects, including the actual controllers Tang and Zhao, have been subjected to criminal coercive measures in accordance with the law.Yixin Group had previously fully suspended the redemption of quasi-fixed income products on May 22 and issued an apology letter to relevant investors on October 11. Yixin stated that the group has incurred significant losses in multiple businesses, and the market value of asset disposal is relatively low. Preliminary findings indicate that the group may be insolvent and has a significant debt repayment gap.

According to Iranian media Fars News, an advisor from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard stated that they will soon block the "illegal" shipping routes in the Strait of Hormuz.

ZachXBT posted on platform X that UPay may allow the sanctioned illegal market Xinbi to issue its Visa crypto card and requested UPay to clarify the situation.ZachXBT stated that Xinbi is mainly involved in pig butchering scams, fraud, money laundering, and human trafficking.