Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency continued moving through major exchanges even after they paid hefty penalties and came under court-appointed supervision, according to a new international investigation.
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released The Coin Laundry, a report based on more than 10 months of work by reporters in 35 countries. Investigators collected hundreds of crypto wallet addresses linked to North Korean cybercrime groups, Russian money launderers and large-scale scam operations. Reporters traced tens of thousands of cryptocurrency transactions on blockchains and found that perpetrators had either set up accounts at some of the biggest exchanges or sent illegally obtained funds to accounts there.
One of the examples involves the Cambodian Huione Group, which allegedly transferred about $1 million in USDT per day to accounts at Binance as recently as July 2025. In total, the report links more than $408 million in transfers from Huione to Binance between July 2024 and July 2025.
The ICIJ noted that the transfers occurred while Binance was under the supervision of two court-appointed monitors as part of its November 2023 plea deal over violations of US anti-money-laundering laws.
Another major exchange, OKX, reportedly received at least $226 million from Huione in the five months following its February plea in the US for operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business. The transactions continued even after Huione was designated a “primary money laundering concern” in May.
ICIJ’s investigation found that a Binance-hosted wallet linked by the US Treasury to a Sinaloa cartel money launderer received over $700,000 mostly from Coinbase accounts, while Chinese fentanyl traffickers sent funds through OKX and a Russian money launderer specializing in moving cryptocurrency for North Korea’s weapons program set up an account at HTX. ICIJ also examined loosely regulated crypto “cash desks” and courier services that convert digital assets to cash, as well as Forsage, a massive smart-contract-based scam accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars. The report also says that blockchain analytics firms are reluctant to publicly implicate major exchanges in illicit activity.
While Europe introduced new consumer-protection and transparency rules in late 2024, the US under President Donald Trump rolled back enforcement actions, dropping civil cases against major exchanges. In October, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange Binance, who was sentenced to four months in prison in April 2024 after pleading guilty to violating US money laundering laws. Binance also pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $4.3bn after a US investigation found it helped users bypass sanctions.
Crypto firms in the US are already held to weaker anti-money-laundering standards than banks and are overseen by an understaffed IRS division.
“Even before that, the US held crypto firms to lower standards for preventing money laundering than it does banks. U.S. regulators classify exchanges in the same category as money transmitters like Western Union,” the report notes. “As a result, while multiple agencies supervise anti-money laundering practices at banks, crypto exchanges are overseen by the IRS’ small-business and self-employed division. The understaffed office has struggled in recent years to adequately oversee cryptocurrency operations, according to the agency’s inspector general.”