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Financial Crime · Cryptocurrency
Case Study

Tracing $14M in Laundered Cryptocurrency Across Six Jurisdictions

47 wallets mapped 6 identities de-anonymised 72 hours to evidence package
Southeast Asia Financial Intelligence Unit Financial Crime Anonymised

The Challenge

A Southeast Asian Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) was investigating a suspected trade-based money laundering (TBML) network. Analysts had identified three cryptocurrency wallet addresses connected to a series of suspicious transactions — but could not link them to real-world entities. The suspected network spanned six jurisdictions, was using cross-chain bridges to obscure fund flows, and was coordinating through encrypted channels.

Existing financial analysis tools could map transactions within a single blockchain but could not correlate blockchain activity with open-source intelligence or cross-chain movements. The investigation had stalled after four months.

The FIU needed a platform capable of tracing value across multiple blockchains simultaneously, correlating on-chain activity with open-source and dark web data, and producing an evidence-grade intelligence picture that could support mutual legal assistance requests across multiple jurisdictions — all without requiring a team of data scientists to operate.

The Approach

BlackScore deployed a three-phase investigation methodology, combining blockchain graph analysis, identity correlation, and intelligence fusion into a unified investigative workflow.

01

Phase One

Blockchain Graph Mapping with BlackFinINT

BlackFinINT traced the three seed wallet addresses across four blockchains — Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron, and Binance Smart Chain — revealing a network of 47 wallets connected through a series of mixers, cross-chain bridges, and exchange deposits. Wallet clustering algorithms identified 9 distinct ownership clusters, narrowing the suspected principals from dozens of addresses to a manageable set of entities. What had been an opaque tangle of pseudonymous addresses resolved, within hours, into a structured picture of the laundering infrastructure.

02

Phase Two

Identity Correlation with BlackWebINT

Wallet addresses and transaction hashes were cross-referenced against BlackWebINT's dark web and open-source collection. Three wallet addresses appeared in dark web forum posts, linking them to specific usernames active on encrypted marketplaces. BlackWebINT's entity resolution engine correlated those usernames with email addresses, Telegram handles, and social media accounts — building partial digital identity profiles for six suspected network members. Pseudonymous actors who believed their blockchain activity was disconnected from their online personas were proven wrong.

03

Phase Three

Unified Investigation Picture in BlackFusion

All financial and OSINT intelligence was ingested into BlackFusion, which produced a unified entity graph connecting wallet addresses, online personas, and real-world identity fragments. BlackFusion's link analysis automatically surfaced three shell company registrations in two jurisdictions that shared directors with the identified entities — a connection that traditional financial investigation had not uncovered across four months of manual work. The complete intelligence picture was available to every investigator on the case in a single, collaborative workspace.

The Outcome

The investigation moved from a four-month stall to an actionable evidence package in under a week. The FIU had everything it needed to draft and file mutual legal assistance requests across multiple jurisdictions — a process that had previously required months of additional groundwork.

  • 47 cryptocurrency wallets mapped across 4 blockchains, resolving to 9 distinct ownership clusters
  • 6 real-world identities de-anonymised from blockchain activity and dark web correlations
  • 3 shell company networks identified across 2 jurisdictions, with director linkages to identified entities
  • $14M in suspected laundered assets traced to withdrawal points at 4 regulated exchanges
  • Mutual legal assistance (MLA) requests drafted and filed within 72 hours of investigation resumption
  • Investigation timeline compressed from a four-month stall to actionable evidence in under a week
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