The Federal Bureau of Investigations along with other United States authorities jointly were able to clawback and recover over $30 million of cryptocurrency from the Lazarus group. As we previously reported, the Lazarus group is a North Korean state-sponsored hacking group that has successfully stole hundreds of millions of cryptocurrency and has most recently hacked U.S. energy grid companies.
North Korea funds its military and nuclear capabilities through stolen cryptocurrency, so the U.S. recovering any amount of stolen funds directly impacts the North Korean government.
Erin Plante, senior director of investigations at the cryptocurrency intelligence firm Chainalysis, commented to the Wall Street Journal that this is a major win for the U.S. authorities against North Korea.
“It’s a big deal to have any amount of money clawed back from the Lazarus Group. That didn’t used to happen.”
The FBI which previously publicly linked the Axie Infinity online game hack to North Korea and the Lazarus Group, did not respond to request for comments by the Wall Street Journal.
An analysis of the hack found that the Lazarus group used more than 12,000 different addresses in an attempt to obfuscate the stolen crypto. Advanced cryptocurrency and blockchain analysis performed by the FBI and Chainalysis allowed the U.S. authorities to retrace the stolen crypto.
The Lazarus group also utilized Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer which blends stolen funds with those from others. It compounds the difficulty in retracing stolen crypto as it is blended and moving between multiple cryptocurrency blockchains.
While $30 million in recovered crypto is a fraction of the hundreds of millions originally stolen by the Lazarus group from the Axie Infinity hack, it remains a symbolic win for the U.S. authorities.
“in the past when North Korea stole money from a crypto exchange, that money was gone”, noted Erin Plante.
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