Researchers at TRM Labs said that the largest criminal groups, including North Korean hackers and Mexican drug cartels, depend on Chinese underground banking syndicates that launder billions of dollars in cryptocurrency, turning digital money into fiat.

The head of the Global Policy Department TRM Labs and a former US Department of Finance Ari Redbord said that global financial regulators and international law enforcement agencies do not take into account the central role of underground Chinese banking networks in laundering of criminal income.

“We selectively study scattered threats. Drug trafficking, cybercrime of North Korea, fraudulent scams and the like – instead of paying attention to underground Chinese bankers who connect all these crimes, ”said Ari Redbod.

In his opinion, the largest BYBIT exchange in February in the history of the crypto industry in the history of crypto industry, when North Korea stole the broadcast by $ 1.4 billion, but laundered funds through Chinese banking channels, and not on her own.

TRM Labs analyst and ex-employee of the FBI Nick Carlsen added that these networks are based on offshore shelters in Southeast Asia, for example, in Cambodia.

“Few people admit that not North Korea washed the crypto assets stolen by hackers. These are not North Koreans. This Chinese bankers laundered Bybit money, ”Karlsen said in an interview with Decrypt.

Carlsen said that studies of cybersecurity specialists from TRM Labs revealed a stable causal relationship between large criminal groups and underground Chinese banking networks, which provide liquidity, allow you to bypass international restrictions and can act as one of the key elements of the global criminal economy.

TRM Labs proposes to use aggressive methods of exposure, including sanctions and blocking operations in blockchains in order to strike at the Chinese banking underground and undermine the financial base of drugwear and hackers.

Earlier, Bloomberg, with reference to sources in the BYBIT crypto -story, reported the start of the investigation of the European Union regulators in relation to the OKX crypto platform on suspicion of assisting the money laundering and hiding the traces of a large -scale hacker attack.