Suspicious Transactions and Cryptocurrency-Related Crimes Hit Record Levels in Germany

Germany’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) has reported an unprecedented spike in crimes associated with cryptocurrency since the previous year. They noted that while the total number of Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) has decreased, incidents of crypto crimes continue to climb.

In its latest 2024 annual report released on June 10, 2025 in Cologne, Germany’s FIU revealed that 8711 notifications related to suspicious crypto activities were received in 2024. This marks a rise of nearly 8.2% compared to the previous year (8,049 notifications of suspicious crypto activities in 2023).

The uptick in crypto-related offenses has occurred despite a decrease in overall SARs following the introduction of new guidelines by the agency that filtered out irrelevant reports, as stated in an article published by Bloomberg.

The FIU report also highlights that most of the identified fraudulent transactions involved BTC, ETH, Tether, and Litecoin, associating them with mixing services, online gambling, and trading platforms.

In addition, the agency has recognized the utilization of these tokens for transactions that disguise their origins to conceal illicit funds, indicating a growing role for digital assets in money laundering activities.

The report from the FIU regarding the increase in crypto crimes aligns with a related report from the FBI, which indicated a notable rise in crypto-related crimes throughout 2024.

Criminals utilize crypto asset mixers, otherwise known as tumblers, to launder illicit funds. International criminal syndicates such as the Lazarus Group employ the CoinJoin mixing network to launder millions of dollars in stolen cryptocurrency.https://t.co/mc2QmdWKr0 pic.twitter.com/dXZmHtFRWk

— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) June 4, 2025

Christopher Delzotto, the section chief of the Financial Crimes Section for the FBI, mentioned that the agency has reached out to over 5,400 individuals who fell prey to crypto scams from January 2024 to April of this year, many of whom were not aware they had been targeted.

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Global Surge in Crypto-Related Crimes

Germany is not alone in experiencing a heightened level of crypto-related criminal activity. Such offenses are escalating worldwide, and concerns regarding the use of digital assets for illicit purposes are mounting.

For example, in the UK, the National Crime Agency (NCA) reported that SAR filings increased to just over 872,000 from 2023 to 2024. The report also indicated that over 6.6% of the total SARs filed were linked to crypto exchanges.

The region has seen a rise in counter-terrorism funding as well as an increase in the freezing of suspicious accounts.

Turning to the US, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) reported that it received more than 8600 SARs associated with crypto in 2023. This followed an advisory issued in September 2024 that led to weekly filings spiking over 1560, increasing the total number of SARs submitted in 2023 to 4.6 million.

A report by Chainalysis indicates that the volume of laundered crypto peaked in 2022 at $31.5 billion, decreasing to $22.2 billion in 2023. Although the figures for 2023 reflect a decrease, they remain significantly above pre-2021 levels.

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Europe to Prohibit Privacy-Enhancing Coins by 2027

In alignment with their anti-money laundering regulations, the European Union intends to ban the use of privacy-enhancing coins effective July 1, 2027. Additionally, there will be a comprehensive crackdown on anonymous wallets specifically.

Under the new regulations, all crypto services in the EU will be required to verify user identities. Moreover, transactions exceeding €1000 will necessitate a full KYC (Know Your Customer) process.

Furthermore, unhosted wallets utilized for privacy purposes will also need to comply with the new regulations. These rules focus on enhancing user traceability to combat fraud as Europe faces an ongoing wave of crypto scams.

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