Chainalysis Helped The US Recover $30 Million From North Korean Hackers In Axie Hack

Chainalysis with law enforcement and leading organizations in the cryptocurrency industry, more than $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean-linked hackers has been seized. This marks the first time ever that cryptocurrency stolen by a North Korean hacking group has been seized.

As reported by Chainalysis, more than 30 million USD or 10% of the money stolen by North Korean hackers from the Axie Infinity hack was seized after 6 months of investigation.

However, the sad thing is that the hack of more than 600 million USD in March but at current Crypto prices, the damage has been halved in value, ie more than 300 million USD.

Even so, the recovery of this lost funds is also an important milestone demonstrating that with the right blockchain analysis tools, investigators and world-class compliance experts can cooperate. works to thwart even the most sophisticated hackers and money launderers.

The typical sophisticated trick of the Lazarus Group thief team is also fully revealed, it has about 5 stages:

1. Stolen Ether sent to intermediary wallets
2. Ether mixed in batches using Tornado Cash
3. Ether swapped for bitcoin
4. Bitcoin mixed in batches
5. Bitcoin to crypto-to-fiat services for cashout

Lazarus Group utilized chain-hopping to launder some of the funds stolen from Axie Infinity. Can see that the hacker bridged ETH from the Ethereum blockchain to the BNB chain and then swapped that ETH for USDD, which was then bridged to the BitTorrent chain. Lazarus Group carried out hundreds of similar transactions across several blockchains to launder the funds they stole from Axie Infinity, in addition to the more conventional Tornado Cash-based laundering.

Chainalysis says crypto transparency is instrumental in investigating hacks like Axie Infinity.

‘Investigators with the right tools can follow the money to understand and disrupt a cybercrime organization’s laundering activities. This would never be possible in traditional financial channels, where money laundering usually involves networks of shell companies and financial institutions in jurisdictions that may not cooperate”.

The report wrote

Much of the money stolen from Axie Infinity remains unspent in crypto wallets under the hacker’s control. So Chainalysis will continue to work with the crypto ecosystem to prevent them and other nefarious people from withdrawing their funds.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

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