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Americans who value the rule of law ought to be livid: a massive investigative project led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists shows top crypto platforms like Binance and OKX processed millions in illicit funds from organized crime even as they chased mainstream respectability. The reporting rips apart the comforting industry narrative that crypto is a cleaner, safer alternative to the banking system and shows instead an ecosystem that still funnels dirty money with alarming ease.
The ICIJ analysis tallied specific flows, finding at least $408 million in tether moved from the Huione Group into Binance customer accounts between July 2024 and July 2025, even while court-appointed monitors were supposedly watching the company. Those are not abstract ledger entries; they represent real proceeds from human trafficking, large-scale scams and complex laundering operations that found their way into the world’s biggest exchange.
OKX is not blameless. The exchange’s operator pled guilty in February 2025 to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and agreed to pay roughly $505 million in fines and forfeitures, yet the ICIJ found hundreds of millions still flowed into OKX customer accounts from the same flagged Huione addresses afterward. That sequence of events shows that fines and sweetheart settlements without sustained, unforgiving oversight do not stop bad actors from exploiting weak compliance.
When you peel back the PR, the business model of these platforms is obvious: they make money on fees tied to volume, and that creates a perverse incentive to turn a blind eye. Forbes’ coverage underscored that exchanges directly profited from transactions linked to scammers, hackers and drug cartels, and that industry promises about blockchain transparency are often powerless in practice when anonymous wallets and automated swapping obscure the trail.
The political theater around crypto enforcement has been shameless. The ICIJ piece even recounts how political intervention, like the October pardon of a major industry figure, fed a narrative that enforcement could be waved away — a dangerous message to both bad actors and honest investors. Conservatives should condemn both the influence of political favor and the softness of regulators that lets systemic risks persist while hardworking Americans lose their life savings.
This is not a niche problem. Law enforcement estimates cited in the investigation put Americans’ losses to crypto crime in the billions — a staggering, avoidable hemorrhage that disproportionately hits ordinary people and retirees who believed in new technology over old-fashioned common sense. While the industry brags about technical solutions, the reality on the ground is victims chasing funds across opaque ledgers while exchanges collect fees and move on.
Patriots who believe in markets and order should demand tougher remedies: real, ongoing compliance enforced by credible monitors; individual accountability for executives who ignore systemic abuse; and the power to freeze and seize assets when courts find connections to criminal enterprises. Regulatory capture and PR apologies won’t protect Americans — only sustained enforcement and clear rules will keep bad actors from treating American markets as a money-laundering playground.
Congress and the next administration must stop treating crypto as an ideological cause and start treating it like the national-security and consumer-protection problem it plainly is. If Republicans want to defend liberty and property, now is the time to hold exchanges to account, close loopholes that let cartels and foreign hackers profit, and make sure financial innovation benefits citizens, not criminals.
