Crypto is not a safe haven for illicit finance.
๐ ~11% of illicit crypto volume was seized in 2025 โ 55x the recovery rate for fiat.
That figure comes from publicly reported actions by Tether, Interpol, the T3 Financial Crime Unit, and others โ not a single agency estimate.
๐ For context: The UNODC estimates less than 1% of illicit fiat flows are seized globally each year.
Even stripping out the Prince Group case alone (~US$15B in BTC), the remaining 2025 crypto seizures still run at roughly 10x that fiat baseline.
๐ SlowMist and PeckShield tracked 8.3%โ13.2% of stolen funds recovered or frozen in 2025 โ reflecting fast incident response and tight coordination between exchanges, issuers, and law enforcement.
The bottom line:
Crypto crime isn't solved. But the idea that crypto is uniquely hospitable to illicit activity is increasingly a myth.
Blockchain is transparent by design. Regulators and investigators are finally using that to full effect.