Crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi have frozen about $1.4 million worth of cryptocurrency related to North Korea, according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. The company noted that the stolen funds, which until recently had been dormant stemmed from Harmony’s Horizon Bridge hack in June 2022.
crypto related to North Korea was
frozen by Binance and Huobi.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic announced Tuesday that it has worked with cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi to “freeze Lazarus Group hack proceeds. “Elliptic wrote:
Crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi today froze accounts containing approximately $1.4 million in crypto assets stemming from the June 2022 Harmony Horizon Bridge hack.
“The Horizon cross-chain bridge was attacked on June 24, 2022, resulting in the loss of $99.6 million in cryptoassets. These funds were subsequently laundered through Tornado Cash, which is now licensed,” the blockchain analytics firm detailed. Tornado Cash, an Ethereum mixer, was banned by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) last August.
Horizon Bridge hackers sent more than 98% of the $100 million in stolen crypto assets to the Tornado Cash mixer, Elliptic said last June. The stolen crypto assets included Ether (ETH), Tether (USDT), Wrap Bitcoin ( WBTC ), and Binance Coin (BNB), and the company said the hackers quickly used Uniswap to convert 85 ,837 converted to ETH
{Elliptic investigators traced the full trail of funds through the mixer and attributed the hack to the Lazarus Group, a North Korean-controlled cybercrime organization. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) subsequently confirmed that the Lazarus Group was involved in the hack, Elliptic continues, “The Lazarus Group was responsible for the hacking, and the FBI has since confirmed that the Lazarus Group was involved in the hacking.
The stolen funds had been sitting dormant until recently, when our investigators began to see them being funneled through a complex chain of transactions to exchanges.
Elliptic CEO Simone Maini commented:
Today, money laundering was detected and stolen funds related to North Korea were frozen in real time.
“As an industry, we have the power and responsibility to prevent digital assets from becoming a haven for money launderers and sanctions evaders and to ensure that digital assets become a force for good,” the CEO added.
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