Elliptic says Cross-chain laundering has milked about $21 billion

The crypto scammers are getting more creative by the ￰1￱ to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic’s 2025 report, pig butchering, a form of romance fraud in which victims are groomed into sending money to fake crypto investment schemes, has grown into a multibillion-dollar ￰2￱ blockchain analytics revealed that the industry has grown due to forced labor and human trafficking in Southeast Asian ￰3￱ said there is an emergence of Chinese-language “guarantee marketplaces”, which operate as one-stop shops supplying technology, personal data, laundering services, and even AI-generated ￰4￱ pig butchering scams are complex frauds that trick people into investing in fake ￰5￱ points to increasingly organized methods of laundering stolen funds using practices that resemble professional financial ￰6￱ used in pig butchering Elliptic’s investigators found that scammers often pool victims’ deposits into self-hosted wallets used only to consolidate and move ￰7￱ there, the money goes through a series of transactions to hide its ￰8￱ may also go through cross-chain links or payment processing services, making it look like the money is real.

A popular tactic involves using mule accounts at regulated crypto ￰9￱ accounts frequently share suspicious markers such as identical residential addresses, repeated IP logins, and patterns of transfers between ￰10￱ sent in for compliance checks sometimes show workers working from call centers or warehouses that are known to be where pig-butchering businesses start. However, the study stresses that blockchain leaves clear records of transactions, unlike cash-based ￰11￱ openness gives lawmakers and platforms new ways to spot fishy behavior, even as scammers get better at what they ￰12￱ says that Cross-chain laundering has milked about $21 billion Elliptic also warns that pig butchering is only one piece of a broader ￰13￱ report also detailed how individuals facing official sanctions increasingly turn to stablecoins for cross-border transactions. 🥁The Typologies Report is here 🚨 Explore 5 key threats shaping crypto crime right now: ✅ AI-driven scams ✅ Pig butchering ✅ Stablecoin abuse by sanctioned actors ✅ Cartel-linked money laundering ✅ Cross-chain laundering 📥 Download here: ￰0￱ If you… ￰14￱ — Elliptic (@elliptic) September 25, 2025 For instance, Russian entities use A7A5, a rouble-pegged asset, to get around the rules.

Also, Rostec, a defense conglomerate, has said it wants to launch its own token, RUBx, to settle transactions for military goods. “Unsurprisingly, sanctioned actors have now integrated stablecoins into their sanctions evasion schemes,” Elliptic ￰15￱ include cross-border transfers, direct payments for goods and services, and theft through ￰16￱ addition, cross-chain laundering, which is the movement of money between different blockchains to hide where it came from, has become an important part of illegal ￰17￱ to Elliptic, more than 20% of money laundering cases now involve 10 or more blockchains. Elliptic’s research shows that more than $21 billion has been laundered through decentralized exchanges and ￰18￱ is a fivefold increase since ￰19￱ report warns that “cross-chain activity is now a fully embedded feature of illicit activity in the crypto-asset ecosystem.” The Lazarus Group in North Korea is responsible for over $2 billion in illegal cross-chain activity, or 12% of the ￰20￱ techniques are also used by fraudsters, drug dealers, and even networks that use children for sexual ￰21￱ also warns that fraudsters are marketing “ AI-powered trading bots” that, in reality, amount to so-called rug-pull ￰22￱ is a type of fraud where the creators of a project suddenly withdraw all the funds invested by users, leaving them with worthless tokens, while hostile state actors are using AI to refine malware and ￰23￱ you're reading this, you’re already ￰24￱ there with our newsletter .