Congratulations to the outstanding international team behind ICIJ's investigation The #CoinLaundry for earning top honors in the 2025 SABEW Best in Business Awards.
Thanks to all the journalists and media partners who helped made this possible!
Anti-money laundering authorities in Canada have revoked registrations of nearly three dozen cryptocurrency businesses following @thestar.com's reporting for the ICIJ-led #CoinLaundry investigation.
Read the latest: buff.ly/3SfBpaz
How do billions in "anonymous" crypto turn into cold, hard cash? 💸
Join us and @opencorporates.bsky.social on March 26 to see the methodologies behind the #CoinLaundry investigation.
Register now: buff.ly/yzCffyK
#Crypto #AML #InvestigativeJournalism #FinCrime
Transcript: The Washing Machine | So… I have a history around washing machines. | The security at my university used to be pretty lax, so I used to study in laundry room intended for residents. It was great for when the study spaces were closed. The washers and dryers also served as great white noise machines for better focus. I believe the waiting area also had a vending machine for the much needed super charge. | During these years, my friend and I rented a Korean mvie called… | The Beautiful Washing Machine. I remember there was almost no dislogue and we got bored.
Transcript (Page 2): Some 18-ish years later, I don’t remember much of the plot. | But I do remember that there was so little going on in the movie that we made up our own dialogue. | It made the movie a lot more fun to watch! | Throwback to… 1997. YTV Brainwash (logo). YTV Brainwash was a Saturday 8:00 am - noon and Sunday 10:00 - noon programming block on YTV. My favourite shows were Dragon Ball, Earthworm Jim, Rugrats, and Alex Mack || Transcript (Pagr 3): Canadian Music Reccs in no particular order. •Blue Rodeo •DeadMau5 •The Barenaked Ladies •Sloan •The Boomtang Boys •Randy Bachman •The Guess Who •The Tragically Hip •Our Lady Peace || Both pages are illustrated in a blue, pink, and white sketchy style. A laundry room is depicted on a TV, a sketched version of the YTV Brainwash logo, and a bottle of Funkwash laundry soap surrounded by maple leaves, designed by the artist.
A return to the roots that I use these spaces for! 🧺
#TravelersNotebook #トラベラーズノート #comics #stories #artspam #laundry #laundryroom #coinlaundry #washingmachine #washer #dryer
#洗濯 #洗濯機 #laundryday #洗濯の日
#YTV #YTVBrainwash #YTVretro
(crypto? crime? huh)
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ICIJ @ICIJorg · 12h
ICIJ’s #CoinLaundry investigation uncovered how crypto-to-cash operations have made it easier than ever to move dirty money around the world.
With these services, people can anonymously cash out huge sums of cryptocurrency and bypass financial regulators.
ICIJ’s #CoinLaundry investigation uncovered how crypto-to-cash operations have made it easier than ever to move dirty money around the world.
With these services, people can anonymously cash out huge sums of cryptocurrency and bypass financial regulators. buff.ly/2fmryxU
The surge of fraud complaints involving crypto ATMs has become a problem for the industry and raises questions about whether the retailers that host the machines are doing enough to protect consumers.
Read this story from The #CoinLaundry investigation:
From iMEdD: ICIJ reporter @spencerwoodman.bsky.social, who led The #CoinLaundry investigation, discussed his contribution to the reporting and the lessons it offers for journalists navigating the opaque world of cryptocurrency.
Learn more:
NEW: As the unregulated crypto industry expands, the number of IRS staff assigned to oversee anti-money laundering practices drops to its lowest level in nearly decade. #CoinLaundry www.icij.org/investigatio...
Did you know?
According to over a dozen experts and cybercrime specialists in law enforcement, analytics tools often fail to identify the ownership of cryptocurrency addresses used by crypto-to-cash services.
Read more findings from The #CoinLaundry:
After ICIJ’s #CoinLaundry, crypto fraudster Vladimir Okhotnikov's latest project Meta Whale has attracted scrutiny. The platform's operations in Vietnam were shut down and regulators in Australia and Canada have warned the public against investing in it.
From The Australian Financial Review: The washing of money through digital tokens is fueling global crime. AFR traced funds from the robbery to its final "integration" and explain why Australia needs stronger international rules. #CoinLaundry
Journalists in the U.S., Germany, Portugal, Ukraine and Georgia uncovered new details about the business dealings of the alleged mastermind of a multimillion-dollar crypto scam as part of The #CoinLaundry.
Learn more:
Reporters for ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation spoke with more than a dozen cryptocurrency experts and law enforcement officials who expressed deep concern over the rise of a parallel financial system often operating in anonymity and ripe for abuse.
The findings from The #CoinLaundry investigation raise questions about whether exchanges are doing enough to stop illicit financial flows, either by freezing funds, closing accounts or carefully monitoring suspicious transactions.
Learn more:
While cryptocurrency has become enmeshed in the traditional finance system, it has also been central to industrial-scale scam operations, fraud and other crimes. For The #CoinLaundry, ICIJ’s data team analyzed crypto transactions to expose dirty money.
The rise of blockchain technology — and the speed and anonymity of cryptocurrency transactions — has enabled Vladimir Okhotnikov to lure investors with far-fetched promises of trustworthy investment opportunities.
Read more from The #CoinLaundry:
One man wants to collect cryptocurrency addresses to reveal their ownership. By performing in-person transactions at as many cash desks as possible, he gathers digital receipts that can offer this information to investigators. #CoinLaundry
For The #CoinLaundry investigation, ICIJ reporters and its partners relied on more than two dozen experts to either trace cryptocurrency transactions or to verify our analyses.
To know more about how this investigation came together, read our FAQs:
In interviews for The #CoinLaundry investigation, more than a dozen former compliance workers at major exchanges, including OKX and Binance, told ICIJ and its partner The Toronto Star that they could hardly keep pace with savvy criminals.
Read this story:
Huione Group, a financial services conglomerate, lies at the nexus of identity theft, human trafficking, scam, fraud and money laundering.
ICIJ's data team tracked transactions between Huione and centralized exchanges. Read these #CoinLaundry findings:
To make sense of the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency across the world, ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation sorted global regulatory regimes into four groups based on their approaches.
Find out what they are and where your country stands:
The alleged mastermind of a series of cryptocurrency scams, Vladimir Okhotnikov, has repeatedly rebooted an international Ponzi and pyramid scheme while diversifying an ever-expanding portfolio of startups.
Read this #CoinLaundry story:
ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation involved trailblazing blockchain analysis which uncovered how cryptocurrency giants Binance and OKX are key conduits of illicit transactions.
Read our data methodology:
ICIJ’s #CoinLaundry investigation found that Huione Group used major cryptocurrency exchanges to move hundreds of millions of dollars worth of digital currency. Huione Pay, the payment services arm of the financial conglomerate, was recently shut down.
ICIJ’s #CoinLaundry investigation found that HTX kept Kyrrex as a client even though it was aware that law enforcement agencies and investors around the world were investigating whether some of Kyrrex’s wallets were being used by criminals.
Read the story:
ICIJ's #CoinLaundry investigation exposes how cryptocurrency companies empower a shadow economy that lavishly profits from crime. To learn how the crypto is regulated, whether crypto transactions are anonymous or pseudonymous, and more, visit our FAQs:
The #CoinLaundry investigation uncovered crypto-to-cash courier services — often arranged on Telegram — which offer to dispatch couriers with bundles of cash in exchange for a customer’s cryptocurrency.
Learn more about these operations:
Reporters for The #CoinLaundry disentangled tens of thousands of transactions recorded across public blockchains to expose the global financial flows behind money laundering networks, cyber heists and other criminal enterprises.
Read what we found:
