Despite international sanctions, North Korea’s Lazarus Group has resumed laundering stolen cryptocurrency funds through its decentralized privacy tool Tornado Cash.
Laundry activities resume
Recent on-chain activity highlighted by analytics firm Elliptic shows that hackers linked to the Lazarus Group have transferred approximately $12 million in stolen cryptocurrency to Tornado Cash wallets since March 13. The funds were stolen during a series of hacks on cryptocurrency exchanges in November. cooperative And there is a related cross-chain bridge, HTX Eco Chain (HECO).
During the November attack, $30 million was leaked from the HTX exchange hot wallet, and on the same day, the HECO chain suffered $86.6 million in leak damage. After the hack, the stolen funds were converted to Ethereum (ETH) through a decentralized exchange and remained dormant until recently.
Tornado Cash: A Decentralized Privacy Tool
tornado cacheOperating on the Ethereum blockchain, is a decentralized, non-custodial privacy tool that uses smart contracts to facilitate anonymous transfers of ETH and ERC-20 tokens between addresses.
Tornado Cash continued to operate despite being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury in August 2022 for its alleged involvement in laundering more than $1 billion in illicit money. Unlike centralized mixers like the closed Sinbad.io, Tornado Cash’s decentralized structure makes it immune to seizure.
Lazarus Group’s Transition to Tornado Cash
Lazarus Group’s return to Tornado Cash comes after other mixer options, including cross-chain bridge and Bitcoin mixer Sindbad, became inaccessible due to sanctions. Sinbad was seized by Finnish authorities in November 2023 under US sanctions, removing another laundering tool hackers could use. Additionally, the closure of the Blender platform in May 2022 further limited options for cryptocurrency mixers.
Legal Action and Enforcement
In particular, Mixer platform developers also experienced legal repercussions. Tornado Cash’s developers, Roman Storm and Alexey Pertsev, have been charged by U.S. authorities with various crimes, including conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed money transfer business. Likewise, the founder of Bitcoin Fog was recently found guilty of money laundering.
Ongoing challenges for authorities
Lazarus Group’s continued use of Tornado Cash highlights the challenges authorities face in combating illegal activity in the cryptocurrency space. Despite regulatory efforts and legal action against the Mixer platform, hackers continue to abuse privacy tools to launder stolen funds, posing a serious challenge to law enforcement agencies around the world.