ZachXBT Accuses Kucoin of Shielding $13M in Stolen Crypto From German Investigators

ZachXBT Says Kucoin Is ‘Complicit’

The pseudonymous blockchain sleuth posted a nonstop broadside against Kucoin connected May 22. “The squad is complicit and allows illicit enactment to travel arsenic agelong arsenic it generates fees,” ZachXBT wrote connected X, noting that German instrumentality enforcement has been incapable to get immoderate effect from the exchange. He further added that helium has raised these concerns publically earlier and is moving retired of options to compel action.

Image source: X

The accusation builds connected a trail of documented incidents, arsenic earlier successful April, ZachXBT exposed what helium described arsenic large-scale laundering done Kucoin’s infrastructure. A fake Ledger Live exertion listed connected Apple’s Mac App Store was utilized to bargain astir $9.5 million from much than 50 victims (between April 7 and April 13).

The funds (spanning bitcoin, ether, tron, solana, and XRP) were rapidly funneled done implicit 150 Kucoin deposit addresses earlier flowing into a centralized mixing work called AudiA6. A abstracted theft of $3.5 cardinal from Bitcoin Depot was likewise routed done much than 25 Kucoin addresses conscionable days earlier.

ZachXBT calculated that over $13 million successful precocious stolen funds had moved done Kucoin successful a substance of weeks, a fig bound to rise superior questions astir the exchange’s anti-money laundering (AML) screening processes.

Kucoin’s Compliance Troubles Deepen Across Multiple Jurisdictions

Reference to German instrumentality enforcement points to an progressive investigation, perchance tied to victims of the April thefts, that Kucoin has declined to cooperate with. Without speech cooperation, investigators person a constricted quality to hint funds oregon frost assets successful time.

Kucoin’s regulatory lasting has deteriorated crossed aggregate jurisdictions successful 2026, arsenic earlier this year, Austria’s fiscal regulator barred Kucoin from onboarding caller European Union users. Subsequently, successful March, Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) added the exchange to its database of unregistered operators.

That said, the exchange’s astir important U.S. ineligible vulnerability came successful 2024, erstwhile the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Kucoin with operating an unlicensed wealth transmitting business. Kucoin subsequently agreed to a adjacent $300 cardinal settlement to resoluteness those charges successful January 2025.

Separately, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reached a $500,000 civilian punishment colony with Kucoin’s genitor institution for operating arsenic an unregistered futures committee merchant.