Even though Tornado Cash has been blacklisted by the American OFAC, the crypto mixer is still being used. Now the North Korean hackers from the Lazarus Group have once again funneled money through it.
The hacker group has successfully laundered hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Ethereum (ETH). It was captured in November last year from crypto exchange HTX (formerly Huobi) and Heco Bridge.
Taylor Monahan, the founder and CEO of MyEtherWallet, shared on March 28 that the hackers successfully laundered over 48,194 ETH (worth ~$170 million) through Tornado Cash.
Monahan shares some graphs showing how the stolen money was broken up into hundreds of transactions across multiple wallets. After the hackers mixed their money on Ethereum, they transferred it to bitcoin using THORSwap.
On March 13, 2024, Lazarus began to move the funds they stole from HTX / Heco bridge back on November 22, 2023.
It’s sprawling and tedious and huge. I hate it.
how it started how its going pic.twitter.com/JioU3tQ6Cn
— Tay 💖 (@tayvano_) March 28, 2024
An interesting detail is that the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is attempting to stop the hacker group. Partly for this reason, they blacklisted the mixer and also launched an attack on the developers of this software.
Alexey Pertsev was arrested in the Netherlands and had to appear in the trial in Den Bosch last week. He may face a prison sentence of 64 months.
The OFAC alleges that the agency had laundered more than $7 billion worth of crypto since 2019. This included more than $455 million that Lazarus Group took.
In November 2023, HTX and the Heco Chain’s Ethereum bridge fell victim to a hacker attack. HTX boss Justin Sun promised customers they would be fully refunded. However, it remains unclear how exactly the hackers gained control of the hot wallet of the fair.
Source: https://bitcoinmagazine.nl/nieuws/lazarus-group-gebruikt-tornado-cash-weer-gooit-170-miljoen-in-mixer
