The Wall Street Journal reported on September 28 that 46 cryptocurrency exchanges were laundered $88.6 million, which is likely to be associated with criminal activity.
In particular, the publication reported that about $9 million went through the exchange ShapeShift, led by Eric Voorhees. The area is known for the fact that two years have allowed users to remain anonymous. This is the largest amounts of laundered American stock exchanges (and included in the study).
According to the publication, ShapeShift is “the largest recipient of funds in the United States”, registered in Switzerland but operating in Colorado. The article says that the reporters provided the ShapeShift list of addresses that they considered suspicious, and the exchange then put them on the ban.
The WSJ also describes how funds were tracked. So, the reporters traced the blockchain for transactions from Ethereum-wallet-for exchange ShapeShift and KuCoin. About $517 000 in ETH have been converted to Monero to ShapeShift, and then disappeared.
It is noteworthy that a few weeks after this ShapeShift announced his intentions in October to move to compliance with KYC procedures. Erik Voorhees in conversation with CoinDesk called it “a strategic decision” that “was not easy”.
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