The U.S. Treasury has sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Sinbad for laundering $850 million for North Korean hacker Lazarus.

The U.S. Treasury has imposed strict sanctions on cryptocurrency mixer Sinbad through the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The move follows allegations that Sinbad played a key role in laundering stolen funds from North Korea-based hacking group Lazarus.

Sinbad was involved in the Axie Infinity Heist.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on cryptocurrency company Sinbad, which is suspected of being involved in money laundering by the North Korean hacking organization Lazarus Group.

According to OFAC’s November 29 announcement, Sinbad was involved in “processing millions of dollars in virtual currency from various cyber heists conducted by the Lazarus Group.”

This includes major security breaches such as the Horizon Bridge hack in June 2022, the Ronin Bridge hack that affected Axie Infinity in March 2022, and the Atomic Wallet attack in June 2023. It is estimated that these accidents resulted in approximately $850 million in losses at the time of occurrence.

Sinbad.io, a cryptocurrency mixing service founded by an unidentified founder, will be the preferred tool of the North Korean government-backed hacking group Lazarus in 2022, according to the latest annual report from leading analytics firm Chainalytic. came to mind. This assessment is as follows: Last February, experts at Elliptic revealed their belief that Sinbad is essentially a rebranded version of Blender, the mixer that was blacklisted by OFAC in 2022.

By Wednesday, the US government had successfully taken control of the Sinbad website, further tightening its grip on illegal cryptocurrency operations.

Treasury OFAC has blacklisted two Bitcoin addresses and two email addresses associated with Sinbad. This action prohibits all U.S. individuals and entities using the global financial system from participating in this address.

North Korea’s dominance in cryptocurrency hacking

Deputy Minister of Finance Wally Adeyemo said:

“Blended services that enable criminal actors like the Lazarus Group to launder stolen assets will face serious consequences. “The Treasury Department and our U.S. government partners stand ready to deploy all of our tools to prevent cryptocurrency mixers like Sinbad from facilitating illicit activity.”

The statement comes amid an ongoing legal battle by cryptocurrency advocacy groups against OFAC sanctions against Tornado Cash. The mixing service was punished in August 2022 for helping Lazarus launder more than $455 million in illegally obtained funds.

The North Korean hacking group is reported to have accumulated close to $240 million in cryptocurrency through a series of attacks starting in June 2023. These heists include the theft of $100 million in the Atomic Wallet breach, $37.3 million from CoinsPaid, $60 million from Alphapo, $41 million from Stake.com, and $31 million from CoinEx.

Lazarus was linked to the use of the Avalanche Bridge for over 9,500 Bitcoin transactions and cross-chain methods to move assets, even amid warnings from South Korea’s National Intelligence Service about attacks on North Korea’s shipbuilding industry.