A joint investigation by the blockchain analytics firm Elliptic and Thailand’s police force just unraveled more than half a billion dollars in suspicious crypto transactions across Southeast Asia.
In a statement, Elliptic says that its Asia-Pacific Intelligence team joined hands with the Royal Thai Police’s High-Tech Crime Division (HTCD) for a data-sharing initiative involving cases linked to crypto theft, scams and money laundering.
According to Elliptic, an analysis of more than 500 reported suspicious crypto wallets associated with nearly $14 million in individual victim losses led to a large network of activities involving incoming crypto transactions worth $520 million.
The criminal activities include crypto asset thefts, which comprise wallet hacks and credential thefts, as well as professional money laundering and fraud schemes involving pig butchering scams and addresses connected to organized criminal network compounds in Cambodia and Myanmar.
“The cyber scam networks in Myanmar and Cambodia are known for their resourcefulness and ability to adapt in the face of disruption. Being able to trace their latest on-chain behaviors enables compliance professionals and wider law enforcement in the region to proactively mitigate emerging risks and laundering typologies.”
The investigators found that the criminal proceeds were split across 32 different blockchains, including Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX) and Bitcoin (BTC). Criminals notably used decentralized exchanges (DEXs), cross-chain bridges and instant swap exchanges, which do not typically require know your customer (KYC) checks.
Laundering the funds involves converting the niche stolen tokens into mainstream assets, obfuscating the funds through chain-hopping and moving out from freezable stablecoins to avoid blacklisting.
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