Crypto Flows to Human Trafficking Services Jump 85% to Hundreds of Millions by 2025

As revelations linked to Epstein emerge, new data shows crypto payments to suspected money laundering services will increase by 85% globally by 2025.

As the world’s attention remains focused on the ongoing release and processing of emails and documents tied to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, attention has turned to how the exploitation networks operate and move the money.

Against this, a new report from Chainalysis has revealed that the flow of cryptocurrency to services allegedly related to human trafficking will increase significantly in 2025. Transaction volumes are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, up 85% year over year. Although the figures measure financial activity, the report emphasized that the real costs of these crimes are borne by the victims, not the balance sheets.

Crypto Activity Linked to Trading

The rise in crypto-related trafficking activity has coincided with the rise of Southeast Asian-based fraud syndicates, online gambling, and Chinese-language money-laundering and assurance networks, many of which operate openly on Telegram and form a tightly-knit ecosystem with global reach.

Unlike cash-based systems, blockchain transparency helps investigators track these flows, thus creating opportunities to identify and disrupt networks that would otherwise remain hidden. Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis tracked four main categories of alleged cryptocurrency-driven trafficking: Telegram-based “international escort” services suspected of human trafficking; “labor placement” agents linked to kidnapping and forced labor in scam factories; prostitution networks; and dealers in child sexual abuse materials (CSAM).

The method of payment differs for each category. “International escort” services and prostitution networks depend almost entirely on stablecoins as they prioritize price stability and ease of conversion, but CSAM sellers have historically favored Bitcoin. However, its dominance is waning as other Layer 1 networks and privacy tools emerge.

Escort services found to be deeply integrated with Chinese-language currency trading networks quickly convert local currencies and reduce exposure to freezes by central issuers. Transaction size analysis points to professional activities as approximately 49% of “international escort” service transfers exceed $10,000, which corresponds to organized businesses operating at scale.

At that time, prostitution networks ranged from $1,000-$10,000. These networks often use structured pricing and customer service models, advertising fixed prices across major East Asian cities, and producing visible on-chain patterns that are useful for discovery.

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CSAM Crypto Economy

CSAM functions present a different structure. It found that nearly half of transactions are under $100, and there is a shift to subscription-based models that generate predictable revenue streams. In 2025, Chainalysis saw the growing use of Monero and quick exchanges to dispose of CSAM money, in addition to the emerging overlap between CSAM networks and extreme sadistic communities online, where abuse is monetized with cryptocurrency payments.

One major CSAM site identified in July 2025 alone used more than 5,800 crypto addresses and generated more than $530,000 as of 2022. The report also said that services linked to trafficking use US-based infrastructure for scale and legality, while operators often reside abroad to minimize personal exposure.