Europol has warned that the use of digital assets for criminal activities is becoming more sophisticated. This development was communicated by Burkhard Mühl, director of Europol’s European Financial and Economic Crime Center (EFECC). He made this comment at the just-concluded World Conference on Finance and Cryptoassets.
The event was co-organized by Europol, the Basel Institute for Governance and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). During the event, Mr Mule pledged continued investment from Europol to assist Member States in complex and international investigations, while stating that the misuse of digital assets for criminal activities is becoming widespread and more sophisticated. “Investigating these crimes places a huge burden on law enforcement agencies in EU member states,” he said.
Europol warns against misuse of digital assets for criminal activities
The conference focused on how digital assets and blockchain have evolved and how fraudsters are using them to carry out sophisticated crimes. In virtual currency crime in 2025 report In a report released by Chainalysis in January, the company said illegal crypto addresses received approximately $40.9 billion in 2024. This figure represents only a fraction of the total financial crime proceeds and does not include traditional crimes such as drug trafficking, where crypto is used as payment.
Europol has initiated and completed several major raids since the beginning of this year. This includes dismantling a Latvian cybercrime network that authorities say laundered more than $330,000 through digital assets. An operation was also conducted targeting a clandestine hawala banking network, laundering over $23 million using several digital assets. Additionally, we destroyed a cryptocurrency investment fraud ring that netted over $540 million in profits from over 5,000 victims.
Europe has been hit by a series of so-called wrench attacks, in which criminals turn to physical assault to force digital asset owners to hand over their digital assets and, in some cases, their private keys. Notably, France experienced more than 10 separate incidents throughout the year. as before reported According to Cryptopolitan, the increasing rate of these attacks has led cryptocurrency enthusiasts in the country to demand security for their crypto data as a way to protect wealthy crypto individuals.
Cross-border enforcement challenges
Part of the challenge facing police forces around the world when it comes to crypto-related crimes is their global nature. Additionally, operations may require cross-border cooperation, which can be difficult. For example, a victim of hacking or fraud in the United States may be targeted by an operator on another continent. Challenges also remain in how law enforcement and the private sector approach investigating these crimes.
Diana Pātrut, project manager at Block Intelligence Professionals Association (BIPA), said different analytics companies often produce inconsistent results. “Our stakeholders have made it clear that they are different. blockchain Analytics companies produce different results when tracking transactions. There is also a lack of standardization of wallet attribution, methodologies, training, and formats, making cross-border investigations particularly difficult,” Patrush said.
Partrud also added that training is an area where work still needs to be done. “The biggest issue we see at the moment is that blockchain intelligence training appears to be primarily driven by private sector solutions. This creates confirmation bias and steers trainees toward specific commercial solutions and methodologies without necessarily understanding or evaluating the underlying applications,” she explained. He also added that investigators and financial institutions need to develop critical valuation capabilities.
Get a special free seat Cryptocurrency trading community – Membership is limited to 1,000 people.
