Source: https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/
導讀
ICIJ 的全名是The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists，曾經多次公開離岸公司文件，把那些文件交由多國的調查記者跟進，代表作：Panama Papers, Pandora Papers。ICIJ 的其中一個捐款人是索羅斯 (George Soros) 創辦的 Open Society Foundations。ICIJ 承認索羅斯是其中一位捐款人，但是沒有交代他佔捐款總額的比例。索羅斯曾經沽空港元（提示：1998 亞洲金融風暴），所以他每次開腔評論中國經濟都令大陸官媒非常緊張。因為牽涉索羅斯，香港的財經媒體對 ICIJ 發表的調查報導避而不談。簡單地說，港媒自我審查。原因？你懂的。
The Coin Laundry 是 ICIJ 最新發表的調查報導，裡面有多篇文章或視頻，從不同的角度出發，深入探討加密貨幣在犯罪活動（例如：洗黑錢或逃避制裁）中所扮演的角色。為期十個月的調查過程中，ICIJ 得到 35 個國家的傳媒機構的協助，也有區塊鏈 (Blockchain) 專家提供技術支援。ICIJ 分析了成千上萬的加密貨幣交易，追查電子錢包，訪問加密貨幣騙案受害人，研究加密貨幣發行商及交易所扮演的角色，然後進行分析，再把調查結果寫成文章或拍攝視頻，具備參考價值。以下提供相關文章或影片的連結，以及簡述部份文章的主題或重點。
The Coin Laundry:
How crypto giants moved billions linked to crime
(1:49 minutes)
ICIJ
2025-11-18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU3-qF3BvLo
Led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, The Coin Laundry is a groundbreaking cross-border investigation that reveals how many of these companies make money off the proceeds of scams, theft and other crimes — while those who’ve lost their savings or livelihoods are left with little hope of justice.
Over 10 months of reporting, ICIJ and 37 media partners in 35 countries gathered hundreds of cryptocurrency wallet addresses — analogous to bank account numbers — linked to known illicit activity. Journalists collected them from scam victims, court records, sanctions lists, money laundering and fraud cases, and complaints filed with Seychelles’ financial regulator, among other sources.
Read the full story:
The
Coin Laundry
ICIJ's global cryptocurrency investigation
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/
About
The Coin Laundry investigation
The
investigation reveals how crypto companies profited from crime while victims
were financially ruined.
By
Annys Shin
ICIJ
November
17, 2025
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/about-coin-laundry-investigation-cryptocurrency/
Excerpt: Reporters then disentangled tens of thousands of transactions recorded across public blockchains — the digital ledgers of crypto trades — to expose the global financial flows behind money laundering networks, cyber heists and other criminal enterprises. Journalists interviewed dozens of scam victims across 12 countries and followed their crypto transfers to some of the world’s largest exchanges. ICIJ and its partners worked with more than two dozen blockchain analysts to review and verify the findings.
The Coin Laundry found that money launderers for drug traffickers and Southeast Asian scam center operators and North Korean hackers used brand-name exchanges to move their funds.
A trailblazing analysis by ICIJ revealed that as recently as July 2025, Huione Group, a Cambodian financial institution flagged by U.S. authorities two months earlier as a “primary money laundering concern,” sent about a million dollars worth of the digital currency tether a day to accounts at Binance（幣安）, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In total, ICIJ’s review uncovered more than $408 million flowing from Huione to customer accounts at Binance from July 2024 to July 2025.
Hundreds
of millions of dollars flowed from Huione into Binance customer accounts while
the company was under the supervision of two court-appointed monitors. The
monitors were part of Binance’s November 2023 plea
deal for violating U.S. anti-money laundering laws. Binance agreed to pay $4.3
billion, one of the largest corporate penalties in U.S. history.
FAQS
Frequently
asked questions about The Coin Laundry investigation
What’s
a blockchain? Is The Coin Laundry based on leaked documents? Are crypto
transactions anonymous? These questions and more, answered.
By
Spencer Woodman, Brenda Medina and Delphine Reuter
ICIJ
November 17, 2025
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/cryptocurrency-faqs/
- What is The Coin Laundry investigation?
- What is a blockchain?
- What is the difference between a centralized and decentralized exchange?
- Are cryptocurrency transactions anonymous or pseudonymous?
- How is the crypto industry regulated?
- What are the key findings of The Coin Laundry investigation?
- How did Binance and OKX respond to the Huione findings?
- Is The Coin Laundry based on leaked documents?
- How did ICIJ trace cryptocurrency transactions?
- Which experts weighed in on The Coin Laundry’s findings?
- Who are ICIJ’s partners on The Coin Laundry investigation?
Who
funds ICIJ?
You
can find a list of our recent supporters here.
https://www.icij.org/about/our-supporters/
of
which:
Open
Society Foundations
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/
Open
Society Foundations – Who We Are
https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/who-we-are
Intro:
The Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, are the world’s
largest private funder of independent groups working for rights, equity, and
justice.
About
ICIJ
Explainer
From
trading bans to total embrace, a global guide to crypto regulation
Across
jurisdictions, governments are struggling to rein in a volatile industry worth
more than $3 trillion, leading to patchy oversight.
By
Brenda Medina
ICIJ
November
17, 2025
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/cryptocurrency-regulations-global-explainer/
Intro: In the past decade, as the use of cryptocurrency has picked up and its market value has soared past $3 trillion, governments have been struggling to regulate the technologically novel and financially volatile industry.
Across jurisdictions, authorities have been tasked with protecting consumers and safeguarding financial systems, often while still supporting innovation.
The result? A global patchwork of policies that range from total bans to full legal embraces, with many countries stuck in the middle.
Cryptocurrency is mostly legal in 45 nations, partially banned in 20 and generally banned in 10, according to the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based, nonpartisan think tank, which analyzed crypto regulation in 75 countries. To make sense of this uneven and unsettled landscape, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has sorted global regulatory regimes into four groups based on their approaches:
Red light: Countries that strongly restrict crypto or ban it altogether
Yellow light: Countries that allow crypto with close oversight
Green light: Countries that embrace the industry with friendly crypto laws
Under construction: Countries where crypto is unregulated or stuck in a legal gray zone
Experts are divided over where the United States, traditionally a leader in global financial regulation, would fall on this scale.
Under U.S. President Donald Trump — whose own family has made a reportedly lucrative foray into the crypto business — enforcement actions against the industry have been rolled back, and Trump has made repeated remarks supportive of crypto.
（推介原因：這篇文章根據不同國家對待加密貨幣的態度和監管方式，把它們區分成四個組別。中國屬於紅燈區，即是官府的立場強硬或曾經打壓加密貨幣。日本和歐盟屬於黃燈區，即是並非完全禁止和已經有監管法規。綠燈區即是官府鼓勵加密貨幣甚至大力發展成為支柱產業，例如：El Salvador 及 United Arab Emirates。經濟起飛的印度屬於 Under construction。）
（以下節錄關於中國的段落。）
Red Light
Some countries have taken a hard line against cryptocurrency. They cite concerns about threats to financial stability, illegal money flows and the massive energy consumption of crypto mining — the process of validating crypto transactions, which requires immense computing power. Governments in these countries have tried to shut down most or all crypto activity.
China
With the second largest economy in the world, China is one of the most prominent examples of countries that ban cryptocurrency. In September 2021, the People’s Bank of China declared all cryptocurrency transactions illegal, citing concerns about financial risk, capital leaving the country and the high energy consumption of crypto mining operations. People involved in illegal crypto trading can be fined, have their assets confiscated and face criminal charges, particularly in cases linked to money laundering or fraud. Authorities have enforced the ban by conducting police raids, shutting down crypto exchanges, and censoring crypto-related content on the internet.
Still, underground traders have reportedly found ways to circumvent the ban. In 2023, at least 60 million people in China are estimated to have owned crypto, according to the latest data released by Triple-A, a global payments firm.
Although
China has cracked down on private cryptocurrencies, it launched a Central Bank
Digital Currency, known as the digital yuan, in 2019 and
has built a low-cost platform for developers to build applications that use
blockchains — decentralized distributed ledgers — called the Blockchain-based
Service Network (BSN). Central Bank Digital Currencies, or CBDC, are digital
versions of national currencies, with the same value as fiat money — money
issued by governments like the yuan or the U.S. dollar.
CRYPTOCURRENCY
Crypto
giants moved billions linked to money launderers, drug traffickers and North
Korean hackers
The
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists traced tens of thousands
of transactions and found major crypto trading platforms awash with dirty
money.
By
Spencer Woodman, Agustin Armendariz, Miguel Fiandor Gutiérrez and Sam Ellefson
ICIJ
November 17, 2025
Excerpt: When President Donald Trump pardoned
Changpeng “CZ” Zhao（趙長鵬）in
October, the White House press secretary painted the founder of the world’s largest
cryptocurrency exchange as the victim of a political witch hunt. “The
Biden administration’s war on crypto is over,” declared Karoline Leavitt.
Zhao and his company, Binance（幣安）, had both pleaded guilty in November 2023 to operating without basic safeguards to prevent money laundering. Authorities alleged that they authorized transactions bound for “terrorists, cybercriminals and child abusers.”
Zhao agreed to step down as CEO, and the company pledged to change its ways. It did not. Between the guilty pleas and Zhao’s pardon, Binance continued to profit from hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency transactions linked to some of the world’s most notorious organized crime groups, according to an analysis by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
Over the past 10 months, ICIJ and its partners collected hundreds of crypto wallet addresses — analogous to bank account numbers — associated with North Korean cyber thieves, Russian money launderers and large-scale scam operations. Using the wallet addresses, reporters traced tens of thousands of cryptocurrency transactions recorded on digital ledgers known as blockchains and found that illicit actors had either set up accounts at some of the biggest exchanges or sent tainted funds to accounts there.
Exchanges are important in the crypto financial system because, like traditional banks, they allow customers to set up accounts, store funds and make payments but unlike bank deposits, crypto funds are not federally insured. The companies also play a key role in facilitating illicit activity because they offer a fast way to convert ill-gotten cryptocurrencies into standard currency. For this reason, regulators and law enforcement have tried to push the exchanges to implement anti-money laundering safeguards.
Such actions could eat into exchanges’ revenues, which are largely derived from transaction fees.
“If they kick criminal actors off the platform, then that’s a big revenue source that they lose, so they have an incentive to allow this activity to continue,” said John Griffin, a blockchain data expert at the University of Texas at Austin. He has analyzed how funds from sophisticated impersonation scams flow through Binance, OKX and HTX, an exchange affiliated with Justin Sun（孫宇晨）, who has invested heavily in a Trump family cryptocurrency venture.
“Crypto offers criminals a financial system that’s very efficient compared to the old days when a cartel would have to stuff cash into the back of a Cadillac,” Griffin said.
ICIJ also found that a Binance-hosted address Treasury has attributed to a money launderer for Mexico’s violent Sinaloa drug cartel received nearly all its funding — more than $700,000 — from accounts at Coinbase, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchange. Funds from a notorious ring of Chinese traffickers of fentanyl and other drugs flowed to various accounts at OKX, and a Russian money launderer specializing in moving cryptocurrency for North Korea’s weapons program maintained an account at HTX, ICIJ learned. This account was active as of August. By then, Sun owned $75 million worth of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency, making him one of the largest investors in their crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.
Binance did not respond to specific questions about its hosting of a Sinaloa-linked cartel account. Coinbase said that it was aware of the transactions relating to the cartel, and, “through communications with the U.S. government, it resulted in the wallet address being sanctioned.” In response to questions about the drug trafficking wallets, OKX said “that it proactively worked with law enforcement on this matter, and was privately thanked for our efforts.” HTX did not respond to ICIJ’s questions.
The Coin Laundry also looked beyond the major exchanges to other types of crypto services with even fewer safeguards against surging financial crime. This included examining the murky world of so-called “cash desks” and courier services that specialize in changing cryptocurrency into hard cash and vice versa.
In theory, regulators around the world are supposed to be looking over exchanges’ shoulders to make sure the company is complying with the law. But in practice, a patchwork of laws and fragmented enforcement efforts can mean less government oversight for an industry where the largest players facilitated tens of trillions in crypto trading last year.
New consumer protection and transparency requirements took effect in Europe at the end of 2024. But in the U.S., Trump has overseen a rollback of enforcement actions against the crypto industry. Regulators have dropped civil lawsuits against Coinbase, Kraken and Binance, although the Justice Department continued criminal cases against OKX and Tornado Cash, a service used to obscure the origin of funds by mixing cryptocurrencies from different sources.
Even before that, the U.S. 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. 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.
Many of those on the front lines of combating crypto-related crimes also lack the tools, resources and training to trace stolen cryptocurrency, and they are often unable to recover lost funds.
“Law enforcement can’t cope with the overwhelming amount of illicit activity in the space,” said Julia Hardy, co-founder of the blockchain investigations firm zeroShadow, who works closely with scam victims and police around the world. “It can’t go on like this.”
（推介原因：這篇提及趙長鵬和孫宇晨，以及他們跟美國總統特朗普的關係。特朗普較早前特赦趙長鵬引發爭議，民主黨認為牽涉利益衝突，原因是特朗普的家族有投資加密貨幣，而趙長鵬是加密貨幣交易所幣安的創辦人。孫宇晨即是用六百萬美元買香蕉的那位仁兄，曾經在香港中文大學讀書的前港漂。）
Video
WATCH:
Cryptocurrency exchanges, explained
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/video-cryptocurrency-exchanges-explainer/
Cryptocurrency exchanges, explained - The Coin Laundry
(1:30 minutes)
Are
cryptocurrency exchanges the banks of the digital world? While there are some
similarities, there are also important differences.
ICIJ
2025-11-19
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUyT7lK42wg
FINANCIAL
SECRECY
From
Dubai to Toronto, inside the crypto-to-cash storefronts fueling money
laundering’s new frontier
These
shadowy operations have made it easier than ever to move dirty money around the
world. One man is on a mission to expose them.
By
Spencer Woodman
ICIJ
November 17, 2025
Intro: I’d come to Ukraine to meet Sanders, one of the world’s foremost experts on these crypto-to-cash operations, which have surged in number not only there but in Hong Kong, Toronto, Istanbul, Dubai and other cities around the world. These services allow holders of cryptocurrency to cash out huge sums without touching the mainstream banking system or its safeguards on dirty money tied to organized crime, human trafficking or foreign sabotage operations. Along with a growing number of researchers, Sanders sees the expanding exchange of often-anonymous cryptocurrency with cash as posing a dire threat to the global anti-money laundering system that has been constructed over decades.
“If you have this way to move money with absolutely zero checks on it, you’re facilitating an unlimited amount of crime,” Sanders said. “I could not have in my worst dreams predicted the reality we’re in now.”
Sanders acted as my guide through this new financial underworld, taking me to crypto-to-cash operations in more than a dozen loosely regulated shops — from gritty backrooms in Kyiv to sleek offices in the upper reaches of skyscrapers in the United Arab Emirates. I witnessed more than $130,000 in transactions with these operators, who rarely asked for identification and, on one occasion, openly discussed handling dirty money.
Along with partner reporters, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists spoke with more than a dozen cryptocurrency experts and law enforcement officials who expressed deep concern over the rise of a parallel banking system often operating in anonymity and ripe for abuse. This new financial system has successfully evaded regulators and law enforcement alike, hindering investigations with effectively anonymous cryptocurrency addresses — the crypto equivalent of bank account numbers — and scant customer information.
Our investigation also uncovered crypto-to-cash courier services — often arranged on the Telegram messaging app — operating in Miami, Washington, New York, Montreal and London. These services offer to dispatch couriers with bundles of cash in exchange for a customer’s cryptocurrency. Sometimes these services offer a premium for customers taking hard cash. Anti-money laundering experts say this raises a red flag because it indicates that an organization has lots of cash it wants to offload without using a bank. This reporting is part of The Coin Laundry, an investigation by ICIJ in collaboration with 37 media partners. The Coin Laundry exposes how the crypto industry has profited from illicit financial flows while leaving most of those harmed in the process without recourse.
Although cryptocurrency is technically traceable via public records the transactions often create, crypto technology makes it easier than ever to create an anonymous financial account. Crypto-to-cash desks thrive in this financial secrecy, according to Sanders and other experts I interviewed. In an increasingly common scenario, investigators trace illicit asset flows to secretive crypto wallets whose owners they cannot identify and whose assets they cannot seize. Because crypto-to-cash services often use cryptocurrency addresses whose ownership is unknown to law enforcement, attempts to trace illicit transfers often go cold when a money launderer cashes out at such a service, officials said.
Sanders’ obsession with criminals using secretive crypto wallets has erupted in sometimes unhinged social media rants against industry players — including major blockchain analytics firms. He has called the industry “full of grifters and snake oil salesmen” more interested in profiting than identifying criminal wallet addresses.
（推介原因：這篇聚焦加密貨幣交易所以外的場外買賣活動。一名身在烏克蘭的前美軍扮演記者的嚮導，帶領記者進入地下市場，觀察那些把大量現金變成加密貨幣的地下活動。在香港，中文傳媒有報導類似的場外交收活動，結果都是某人所準備的大量現金被騙去或搶走。但是中文傳媒不會告訴你，受害者是什麼背景，為什麼要買比特幣，大量現金從何而來。原因？自己想。）
CRYPTOCURRENCY
The
Russian crypto guru’s Hollywood gambit
How
the alleged mastermind of a multimillion-dollar crypto scam teamed up with a
globe-trotting influencer and a disgraced Oscar winner as he pushed his latest
dubious project.
By
Scilla Alecci and Fergus Shiel
ICIJ
November 17, 2025
https://www.icij.org/investigations/coin-laundry/holiverse-lado-forsage-cryptocurrency-scam/
（推介原因：來自俄羅斯的加密貨幣騙案主腦 Vladimir Okhotnikov 利用荷里活影星 Kevin Spacey 殺入電影圈，是尋找新的投資者還是受害者？自己想。）
相關的文章：
騙徒版購房通 (Part 3)
2025 年 10 月 24 日
https://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/10/part-3.html
節錄：「錢志敏案」和「陳志案」中，被西方國家執法部門沒收的比特幣其實是騙徒用剩的犯罪收入，即是來不及轉換成外國物業的黑錢。那麼犯罪收入的總額有多少？自己想。現階段還沒有犯罪集團所持有的全部外國物業的完整資料和數據，但是上述兩宗洗黑錢案都有另一個共通點：騙徒及其同謀都把犯罪收入轉換成多個位於英國和杜拜的高級物業，過程中牽涉多間空殼公司（或門面公司）及人頭，形成一個非常龐大而且複雜無比的網絡。
騙徒版購房通
(Part 2)
2025 年 10 月 18 日
https://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post_18.html
節錄：「錢志敏 50 億英鎊洗黑錢案」很有趣，因為她在中國境內的犯罪收入（來自出售理財產品即是非法集資）已經被轉化成比特幣，並且跨國轉移，部份變成外國物業。此案的處理方法會成為重要先例，供其他國家參考。有理由相信，有溫州幫出沒和洗黑錢的歐洲國家（例如：意大利和西班牙）以及曾經破獲福建幫特大洗黑錢案的新加坡（前英國殖民地兼國際金融中心）會密切關注英國的處理手法。
騙徒版購房通
(Part 1)
2025
年 10 月 3 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2025/10/blog-post.html
節錄：第一步：騙徒首先向受害者籌集資金（詐騙）。Case 1 的中國騙徒（錢志敏）透過推銷理財產品非法集資，然後用比特幣 (Bitcoin) 洗黑錢，牽涉金額逾 50 億英鎊，成為全球歷來最大宗涉及比特幣的案件。第二步：籌集的資金（犯罪收入）透過銀行系統以外的管道（例如：比特幣）跨國轉移，然後購買外國物業（洗黑錢）。Case 1 的中國騙徒用假身份和買來的護照（注意：真假有待查證）入境英國，在他人的協助下購買外國物業洗黑錢。
數碼貨幣
(Part 4)
2021
年 7 月 3 日
https://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2021/07/blog-post.html
節錄：科技發展通常領先於監管制度，當科技開拓出一片新的空間，又或者是各國的法律（暫時）管不到的灰色地帶，就會吸引一大群烏合之眾、失業中年、異族浪人或鬼魅魍魎湧入去，趁亂謀取私利、搶佔市場、建立名氣（稍後套現）、清洗黑錢、累積跟官府談判的籌碼，諸如此類。區塊鏈或虛擬貨幣亦可作如是觀，趁入行門鑑 (Entry barriers) 還沒有升高，遊戲規則還未定形，監管機構還沒有找到適當的應對方法，盡快把事情扭曲成最符合自己利益的樣子，否則來不及。
Pandora Papers
2021 年 10 月 4 日
https://xiaoshousha.blogspot.com/2021/10/pandora-papers.html
ICIJ links for readers interested in
offshore finance:
https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/
諜影
2016 年 4 月 22 日
http://xiaoshousha.blogspot.hk/2016/04/blog-post_22.html
節錄：根據 Washington Post 的報導，負責分析文件的國際調查記者聯盟 (The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ICIJ) 背後的美國公共誠信中心 (Center for
Public Integrity)，金主是國際大鱷索羅斯 (George
Soros)。他較早前表示會「沽空亞洲貨幣」，令偉大祖國非常緊張，官媒輪流開炮。索羅斯戰績彪炳，利用在金融市場賺來的錢，資助共產黨的對頭人。中國和俄羅斯的領導人首當其衝，被爆陰毒，理所當然。
文章
