David Edwards
Blockchain expert EmberCN claims that North Korea’s Lazarus Group has laundered an extra 62,200 Ether (ETH), worth $138 million, following the Bybit breach on February 21. 156,500 ETH remain to be processed after the movement, which was noted on March 1.
343,000 ETH have been transferred thus far, up from 54% on February 28. This amounts to 68.7% of the 499,000 ETH that were taken in the $1.4 billion Bybit attack. Within the next three days, EmberCN expects the remaining monies to be laundered.
FBI and Crypto Companies Step Up Monitoring
Previously, launderers had curtailed their efforts when the FBI in the United States issued warnings. The organization asked blockchain bridges, node operators, and cryptocurrency exchanges to stop transactions linked to the Bybit hackers. Elliptic, a blockchain analytics company, identified over 11,000 more wallets that might be connected to the vulnerability, and the FBI also made public 51 Ethereum wallet addresses connected to the organization.
In the meantime, Chainalysis revealed that the hackers had started using decentralized exchanges, cross-chain bridges, and instant swap services devoid of Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures to convert stolen Ethereum into Bitcoin (BTC), Dai (DAI), and other assets.
THORChain Is Under Investigation for Facilitating Transfers
The cross-chain asset swap protocol THORChain is said to be one of the main instruments utilized in the money laundering process. Because it allowed transactions connected to North Korean hackers, the platform has come under fire.
Following the reversal of a community vote to ban transactions connected to North Korea, THORChain creator “Pluto” responded to the controversy by announcing their exit from the project. John-Paul Thorbjornsen, the founder of THORChain, informed Cointelegraph that he is no longer associated with the protocol and that there has been no direct interaction between THORChain and the sanctioned wallets identified by the FBI and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. Treasury.
