Lazarus Group, a company in North Korea, converted $200 million valued cryptocurrency into fiat money between August 2020 and October 2023, as per an investigation from the crypto sleuth ZachXBT.
The investigation examined more than 25 vulnerabilities across many blockchains. It tracked illegally gained money that goes via mixers, peer-to-peer marketplaces, and centralized exchanges, to demonstrate the removal of the funds from the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
ZachXBT posted on the X on Monday, saying, “Thousands of people in the space have been impacted directly and indirectly by Lazarus Group attacks and it seems that number will only continue to increase.”
ZachXBT said, “Identified accounts at Noones and Paxful (P2P marketplaces) that received funds from the hacks and were used to convert crypto to fiat.”
The Lazarus Group steals money through advanced cyberattacks. The Group has been connected to significant cryptocurrency attacks such as the $100 million Harmony bridge exploit in January 2023 and the Ronin bridge hack in March 2022.
The research shows that the stolen money was first transformed into the USDT stablecoin, and then it was traded for real money and taken out. The firm has previously relied on over-the-counter (OTC) traders headquartered in China to convert cryptocurrency to fiat money.
Tether blacklisted more than $374,000 worth of stolen money in November 2023, and ZachXBT reports that three stablecoin issuers have blacklisted an additional $3.4 million that was found in a group of addresses connected to Lazarus.
Among the most infamous groups of cryptocurrency hackers, Lazarus initially surfaced in 2009. Over the six years preceding 2023, the Lazarus Group has pilfered cryptocurrency assets valued at over $3 billion.
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