Crypto exchanges Binance and Huobi froze accounts linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, with the assistance of Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm. The notorious Lazarus hackers had around $1.4 million worth of stolen crypto in their accounts, which are now suspended.
Elliptic stated that it provided intelligence services to Binance and Huobi, which then acted promptly to freeze the Lazarus Group-linked accounts. The $1.4 million in stolen funds originated from a $100 million Harmony’s Horizon Bridge hack carried out by the North Korean-controlled cybercrime organization Lazarus Group.
The Horizon cross-chain bridge was attacked on June 24th, 2022, draining out $99.6 million in crypto assets. The investigation suggests that these funds were then laundered through now-sanctioned Tornado Cash.
The information about these hack proceeds resurfaced after an investigation by Elliptic but the firm didn’t yet disclose what coins or tokens were frozen. According to the report, the stolen funds remained dormant until recently, when investigators began to see them funneled through complex chains of transactions, to exchanges.
Elliptic promptly took action and notified these platforms about illicit deposits and consequently, Binance and Huobi both suspended Lazarus-linked accounts and froze laundered funds.
In response to the facade, Elliptic CEO Simone Maini said that the events showed the crypto industry is taking on the responsibility to prevent money laundering and preventing crypto from being a “haven” for illicit activity.
Elliptic has been actively working to trace down illicit activities and operations related to blockchain transactions. Most recently, Elliptic revealed ‘Sinbad’ as a rebrand of ‘Blender’ coin mixer, which was infamous for helping Lazarus Group launder tens of millions of dollars.
