Lazarus Converts $174m Worth of Stolen ETH from HTX into Bitcoin via Money Laundering
In defiance of being blacklisted by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the Tornado Cash mixer continues to operate, facilitating North Korea-linked hackers in laundering millions of stolen cryptocurrency.
The Lazarus Group, a hacking group affiliated with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), successfully laundered hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Ethereum (ETH) stolen from HTX (formerly known as Huobi) and Heco Bridge in November 2023.
According to Taylor Monahan, the founder and CEO of MyEtherWallet, in a post on X on March 28, the hackers managed to launder over 48,194 ETH (currently valued at approximately $170 million) through Tornado Cash. This mixing service, sanctioned by OFAC, was used to obscure the trail of the transactions. Monahan also provided graphs illustrating the tactics employed by the hackers, who spread their stolen crypto across multiple wallets through hundreds of transactions. They made sure to “hop each withdrawal around a few times.”
After mixing their funds on the Ethereum network, the hackers transferred them to the Bitcoin blockchain using THORSwap, a service that enables cross-chain asset transfers between different networks. It remains uncertain whether the hackers have converted the stolen crypto into fiat currency, as they typically sell it on over-the-counter (OTC) markets.
In November 2023, HTX and the Heco Chain’s Ethereum bridge suffered a hacker attack, resulting in the loss of tens of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency. Justin Sun, an investor at the exchange, assured customers at the time that they would be fully reimbursed. However, it is still unclear how the hackers managed to gain control over the exchange’s hot wallet.
OFAC placed sanctions on Tornado Cash in 2022, alleging that the service had been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of cryptocurrency since 2019. This amount included over $455 million stolen by the Lazarus Group, more than $96 million derived from the Harmony Bridge heist, and at least $7.8 million from the Nomad heist.
Read more: GoFundMe cancels fundraiser for Tornado Cash founders facing US charges
Follow Us on Google News
