The cryptocurrency theft from the crypto exchanges soared during the first half of the year. These recorded thefts were three times the level seen during the whole 2017, which leads a three-fold increase in associated money laundering, as reported by one of the US cybersecurity firms.

According to the report, which shows that the global anti-money laundering market, presented that during the first six months of 2018, there were a total of $761 million stolen from the digital cryptocurrency exchanges when compared to last years’ with about $266 million for the entire 2017.

The total theft losses could rise for up to $1.5 billion this year as what estimated by CipherTrace, a software that helps all the hedge funds and exchanges that trade or use cryptocurrencies to comply with all the anti-money laundering laws.

According to Dave Jevans, the chief executive of CipherTrace, the stolen cryptocurrencies are three times bigger in amount this year than last 2017. Jevans is also the current Chairman of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, which aims to help solve cybercrimes. He also added that all the stolen cryptocurrencies end up beneficial to the criminals in hiding their true identities and to avoid arrest – resulted in a three-fold increase in the money laundering of the cryptocurrencies.

It was the expected that future thefts will soon happen anywhere in the world. The latest theft from a crypto exchange was the Bithumb’s $31.5 million stolen digital currencies. Bithumb is a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange platform. Bithumb said that it had stopped all the trading after the incident and it had to store all their customer’s assets in a safe cold wallet. The company also announces that it will compensate all the victims of the theft.

The continued surge in the crypto crime and hacks has caught the attention of global law enforcers and regulators, according to Jevans. It was also reported that all the concerns about the criminal activity were put into consideration by the U.S Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Research also shows that a total of $1.5 billion was stolen from exchanges over a period of two-year.

Jevans also said that regulators around the world, exchanges and law enforcement have been in constant dialogue about the things to do in the industry of cryptocurrency to prevent all the crime surge. Today, giant countries are building an alliance to create an anti-money laundering regulations to address the rising cybercrime and thefts.