Poloniex cybercriminal successfully transfers looted funds, leaving $182m intact.
The hacker who targeted the Poloniex cryptocurrency exchange has taken an unprecedented step by laundering stolen assets using the Tornado Cash mixer. Currently, the hacker still holds approximately $182 million worth of cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum (ETH), Tron (TRX), Bitcoin (BTC), and Bitcoin Token (BTCT), in their wallet.
The attack on Poloniex occurred on November 10, 2023, resulting in the loss of nearly $125 million in cryptocurrencies. Justin Sun, the owner of the exchange, successfully identified and froze a portion of the assets connected to the hacker’s addresses. Subsequently, Sun offered a reward of $10 million to the hacker for returning the stolen assets.
In a similar fashion, hackers targeting the Kronos Research cryptocurrency platform and the Hundred Finance cross-chain lending protocol have started transferring funds to the Tornado Cash mixing service. Analytics company PeckShield revealed that the hacker initially conducted a test transaction with $200 worth of ETH before transferring 1,314 ETH, equivalent to almost $4 million, to a new address. The hacker then split the funds into 10 transactions of 100 ETH each, moving them to the Tornado Cash service.
The total amount of funds sent to Tornado Cash has now reached 3,000 ETH, equivalent to roughly $3 million. It should be noted that Tornado Cash has faced scrutiny from the U.S. government due to its potential to facilitate the movement of illegally obtained funds. As a result, the crypto mixer was sanctioned in August 2022, with its developers facing charges of money laundering and sanctions violations. In March, the prosecutor’s office requested a five-year prison sentence for Alexey Pertsev, the co-founder of Tornado Cash, as the legal battle between crypto anonymity and regulation continues.
