The world’s most notorious hacker group laundered over $ 35 million in cryptocurrency in just a month

The North Korean hacker group Lazarus is suspected of moving stolen funds after a hacker attack on the DMM Bitcoin exchange in May. Back then, $ 305 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen. Over the past month, according to ZachXBT analysts, hackers have laundered more than $ 35 million on an online marketplace in Cambodia that is linked to the Hun family, which is in charge of the country.

According to Elliptic, the criminal crypto marketplace conducted $ 11 billion worth of transactions, including funds received from hacker attacks and fraudulent schemes. ZachXBT believes that Lazarus is involved in this crime due to similarities in money laundering techniques and off-chain indicators.

The hackers use privacy mixers to deposit stolen bitcoins BTC $65,721.46 Bitcoin -0.11% Market capitalization $1.3 trillion VOL. 24 hours $0.6 billion , then convert them to Ethereum ETH $2,675.22 Bridged Ether (StarkGate) -0.96% Market capitalization $0.2 billion VOL. 24 hours $0.37 billion or Avalanche AVAX $29.15 Binance-Peg Avalanche -4.58% Market capitalization $58.29 million VOL. 24 hours $36.39 million via the THORChain cross-chain liquidity protocol. These funds are then converted toand transferred to Tron before being transferred to Huione.

Nevertheless, $ 28.2 million was blocked thanks to Tether, which blacklisted a Tron wallet linked to hackers. This wallet withdrew about $ 14 million from a hacker attack on the Bitcoin DMM in three days.

Overall, more than $ 1.4 billion worth of cryptocurrency was stolen in 2024. Centralized exchanges are becoming the main target for hackers, with losses increasing by 900% over the past 12 months.