Key takeaways:
- An online marketplace in Cambodia has reportedly seen over $35M in money laundering by the hackers responsible for the $305M crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin theft in May.
- Elliptic reports that the market has exchanged $11 billion worth of crypto as a result of hacking, pig butchering schemes, and other abuses.
An online marketplace in Cambodia has reportedly seen over $35 million in money laundering by the hackers responsible for the $305 million crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin theft in May.
Blockchain forensics company Elliptic stated in a July 10 post that the money was laundered to Huione Guarantee, a company that operates in Cambodia and has ties to the country’s “ruling Hun family,” according to bitcoin expert ZachXBT.
Elliptic reports that the market has exchanged $11 billion worth of crypto as a result of hacking, pig butchering schemes, and other abuses. ZachXBT stated:
“It is suspected that Lazarus Group is behind the hack due to similarities in laundering techniques and off-chain indicators,”
Through the use of the cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain, the hackers have been putting the stolen Bitcoin to privacy mixers, taking it out, and transferring the funds to Ethereum or Avalanche.
According to ZachXBT, the money is thereafter translated into USDT, bridged to Tron, and then sent to Huione.
On July 12, nevertheless, Tron wallet address “TNVaK…s4Ug8” was blacklisted by stablecoin issuer Tether, preventing the payment of $28.2 million to Huione.
According to ZachXBT, this is the same wallet that took out over $14 million over the period of three days from the DMM Bitcoin heist.
Moreover, ZachXBT disclosed 538 wallet addresses connected to Huione, Lazarus Group, and additional parties connected to the DMM Bitcoin attack.
Following the exploitation of a significant vulnerability, DMM Bitcoin, a Japanese company, lost $305 million in Bitcoin. Due to the weakness, hackers were able to get access to DMM Bitcoin’s servers, which resulted in a Bitcoin “unauthorised leak” on May 30.
About a week later, the crypto exchange raised $320 million to make up for the losses suffered by consumers. As of 2024, crypto theft has totaled over $1.4 billion, according to blockchain security company Cyvers.
Since losses on centralized exchanges have increased by 900% in the past year, these exchanges have emerged as a major target for hackers.
