eXch - instant exchange BTC / LN / XMR / LTC / ETH / ERC20

[fillippone]

They did state something about a new management but it seems as though that may not have transpired.

That's the part that makes no sense to me: why join a company, only to shut it down?

Maybe they want to relaunch in a new form without any apparent link to the old Exch brand.
This “interreign” would be a passage needed to protect the new management from legal accusations regarding intellectual property or legal ownership of brands. It sounds stretched. I'm just guessing.

[FlamingRose]

https://www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/Kurzmeldungen/250509_eXch_abgeschaltet.html

On the 30th April the Prosecutor General of Frankfurt am Main – Central Office for Combating Cybercrime (ZIT) – and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) seize the server infrastructure of the crypto-swapping service „eXch “ and secure cryptocurrencies in the form of ether, litecoin and dash worth 34 million euros.

[FIOD Netherlands]

To users of the recently dismantled cryptocurrency exchange,

*****This message is issued by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) and the Bundeskriminalambt (BKA).

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

We are actively investigating individuals involved in money laundering and other illegal activities through this swap service.

Some question actions from law enforcement regarding crypto services. We want to make one thing clear:  this action is not an attack on privacy. We respect the right to privacy and recognize its importance in the digital age. However, when services are heavily abused to commit crime, we will act.

We urge everyone involved in illicit activity to cease immediately. The legal consequences can be serious. Our mission is to protect the integrity of the financial system and hold those who exploit it accountable.

Privacy is not the problem - criminal misuse is.

Sincerely,

FIOD and BKA

https://www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/Kurzmeldungen/250509_eXch_abgeschaltet.html

https://www.fiod.nl/bka-and-fiod-shut-down-cryptocurrency-swap-service-exch-e-34-million-in-cryptocurrency-has-been-seized-during-the-operation/

[examplens]

To users of the recently dismantled cryptocurrency exchange,

*****This message is issued by the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (FIOD) and the Bundeskriminalambt (BKA).

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

We are actively investigating individuals involved in money laundering and other illegal activities through this swap service.

Some question actions from law enforcement regarding crypto services. We want to make one thing clear:  this action is not an attack on privacy. We respect the right to privacy and recognize its importance in the digital age. However, when services are heavily abused to commit crime, we will act.

We urge everyone involved in illicit activity to cease immediately. The legal consequences can be serious. Our mission is to protect the integrity of the financial system and hold those who exploit it accountable.

Privacy is not the problem - criminal misuse is.

Sincerely,

FIOD and BKA

https://www.bka.de/SharedDocs/Kurzmeldungen/DE/Kurzmeldungen/250509_eXch_abgeschaltet.html

https://www.fiod.nl/bka-and-fiod-shut-down-cryptocurrency-swap-service-exch-e-34-million-in-cryptocurrency-has-been-seized-during-the-operation/

"Sincerely"

Why are you not so agile in sanctioning an obvious scam scheme through a network of fake blogs and phishing sites? The scam is tolerated, while the original owner is persecuted.

Code:

monero[.]forex
exch[.]cd
darknetbible[.]info

More information and evidence at: https://cryptofraudexpose.org/

[apogio]

Privacy is not the problem - criminal misuse is.

I doubt you are who you say you are, but let's answer honestly.

You are hiding behind this excuse.

I can guarantee you that I have used the service and that I am not a criminal.

I have no clue where the money I exchange for come from, just like I don't have a clue when I go to an airport cashier to exchange my local money to a foreign currency when I travel.

How can you protect me as a service user? By not allowing me to use it?

You act selectively and you use the "criminal misuse" as an excuse.

[Zwei]

Some question actions from law enforcement regarding crypto services. We want to make one thing clear:  this action is not an attack on privacy. We respect the right to privacy and recognize its importance in the digital age. However, when services are heavily abused to commit crime, we will act.

We urge everyone involved in illicit activity to cease immediately. The legal consequences can be serious. Our mission is to protect the integrity of the financial system and hold those who exploit it accountable.

Privacy is not the problem - criminal misuse is.

who are you trying to fool here?

privacy was always the problem, you don't care about criminal misuse or protecting the financial system, else you would have done the same to the many swap services that are actually scamming and defrauding users daily. Changelly, N.exchange, ChangeNOW, Freewallet, just to name a few.

sincerely, you can go fuck yourself

[LoyceV]

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

A day before they planned to close their operation? Their working domains are still showing they closed.

Just leaving this here:

There's a giant institution with guns out there which wants to destroy every centralized, destroyable component they can find related to privacy. Every centralized privacy service is at risk of being nuked from orbit at any moment, and you want to be nowhere near the strike zone. I think that the legal argument against Samourai is fairly weak, but the law is only ink on a piece of paper: it has no magical powers to protect you. I wouldn't be surprised if the Samourai devs win their case in the end, but their lives are still going to be ruined for at least the next few years, and they'll probably be bankrupted. The fact is that the powers-that-be desperately want these things destroyed, and they're eventually going to find ways of destroying them, if there's any way to do so.

I'm certainly not saying that privacy is a lost cause, but this environment requires a much higher standard of robustness and decentralization. This isn't as free a world as it was when Bitcoin was first created.

[joker_josue]

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

A day before they planned to close their operation? Their working domains are still showing they closed.

Exactly, but after all, which website did the authorities close?
The thing is that both .cx and .pw (which were the official domains) remain online announcing the closure of services. 

Something doesn't add up in this announcement.

[bitmover]

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

A day before they planned to close their operation? Their working domains are still showing they closed.

Exactly, but after all, which website did the authorities close?
The thing is that both .cx and .pw (which were the official domains) remain online announcing the closure of services. 

Something doesn't add up in this announcement.

I couldn't verify by myself yet (no tor in my phone), but looks like the onion link you can see the banner

- using onion link you can see seizurebanner.jpg

http://hszyoqwrcp7cxlxnqmovp6vjvmnwj33g4wviuxqzq47emieaxjaperyd.onion/

[Zwei]

The service has been taken offline as part of our enforcement action.

A day before they planned to close their operation? Their working domains are still showing they closed.

Exactly, but after all, which website did the authorities close?
The thing is that both .cx and .pw (which were the official domains) remain online announcing the closure of services.  

Something doesn't add up in this announcement.

I couldn't verify by myself yet (no tor in my phone), but looks like the onion link you can see the banner

- using onion link you can see seizurebanner.jpg

http://hszyoqwrcp7cxlxnqmovp6vjvmnwj33g4wviuxqzq47emieaxjaperyd.onion/

yep, it seems they only seized their tor website, this is what i see:



but it is weird how they only took down the tor site and left both .cx and .pw domains up.

[joker_josue]

but it is weird how they only took down the tor site and left both .cx and .pw domains up.

But was the Tor site still working, or did it already have the shutdown message?

I'm beginning to think that this performance was more about "showing off work" than actually being practical.

But unfortunately we will never know.

[CreepyUncleJoe]

Besides having their onion site seized, literally all their money has been confiscated and is located at the address bc1qcatv4gxq24z8hwt67sftjlnlm6dxnk04saz5zw.

Can the admin of eXch explain to us, since he’s obviously still at large, how he could be so stupid?

[JayJuanGee]

Besides having their onion site seized, literally all their money has been confiscated and is located at the address bc1qcatv4gxq24z8hwt67sftjlnlm6dxnk04saz5zw.

Can the admin of eXch explain to us, since he’s obviously still at large, how he could be so stupid?

So it appears that maybe the website and wallets were taken over by law enforcement agencies on April 30  - while there were still 401 BTC of value contained therein, and the legal department(s) moved the bitcoin over to their own wallets at the seizure time?

That is too bad if 401 BTC were seized, and perhaps it would have had been eXch money and sure, there could have also been some client funds that were involved too, if the service was still open at the time of the seizure.

[NotATether]

Well, that's incredibly stupid of them to not transfer the money out elsewhere after shutting down.



Very unintelligent from FIOD as well. They are basically saying that running scams is fine, and they won't do anything about them (as long as they aren't humongous).

[Trêvoid]

Well, that's incredibly stupid of them to not transfer the money out elsewhere after shutting down.



Very unintelligent from FIOD as well. They are basically saying that running scams is fine, and they won't do anything about them (as long as they aren't humongous).

Maybe one of theirs admins couldn't handle moving large amounts of crypto quickly, especially under surveillance, sometimes can be complex and very risky.

[Pmalek]

The fight against privacy-preserving services continues. This has nothing to do with stopping money laundering, financing terrorism, etc. It sure as hell has nothing to do with keeping people safe and helping them not to lose their money because many of us can point towards numerous scam exchanges that steal from their clients. Those aren't targeted. These are just excuses to bring down a service that refused to cooperate with law enforcement. The "dirty" crypto that they seized will now go through their hands and could be auctioned of as magically clean money.

It's a miracle how AML works. All that is needed is for law enforcement to call you a criminal and seize your business and money. After a public announcement and giving yourself medals and pats on the shoulders, law enforcement now has clean money they can work with.     

Much safe. Very law. Wuff

[LoyceV]

Privacy is not the problem - criminal misuse is.

The fight against privacy-preserving services continues.

I like the statement: "Privacy is not the problem", but you can't have privacy services without misuse. The whole point of privacy is that the service doesn't ask anything.

It reminds me of this famous quote:

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin

[NotATether]

These are just excuses to bring down a service that refused to cooperate with law enforcement.

They were willing to cooperate with law enforcement and Bybit, but everyone they worked with essentially called them liars and bullied them into falsely claiming that they processed stolen Bybit funds. Most likely to get their own bounty from Bybit. Which is itself fraud. But nobody seems to care as long as North Korea is not your client.

[Pmalek]

I like the statement: "Privacy is not the problem", but you can't have privacy services without misuse. The whole point of privacy is that the service doesn't ask anything.

We must make shower curtains illegal! Only criminals use them. Why would you need to hide yourself behind a shower curtain unless you are doing something illegal? Shower curtains are for drug dealers, money launderers, and supporters of terrorism. Regular folk don't need to worry. Removing them is protecting yourself from such illegal elements of our society.

Support me in my fight against shower curtains (especially in women's bathrooms and dressing rooms). By not doing so, you basically admit that you are Hamas and the Lazarus Group.   

[fillippone]

These are just excuses to bring down a service that refused to cooperate with law enforcement.

They were willing to cooperate with law enforcement and Bybit, but everyone they worked with essentially called them liars and bullied them into falsely claiming that they processed stolen Bybit funds. Most likely to get their own bounty from Bybit. Which is itself fraud. But nobody seems to care as long as North Korea is not your client.

This is actually the most worrisome part and essentially the center of the question. The reaction toward exch, given the minuscule amount of money allegedly passed through their system (26 million out of 1,400 million total)is disproportionate.