US authorities impose sanctions on a cryptocurrency asset launderer for the first time

Today, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on Blender. io, a virtual currency mixer used by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to launder stolen money, according to a press release.

The sanctions were imposed, in particular, on the addresses associated with the mixer. The US authorities link Blender․io to North Korean hackers: «On March 23, 2022, the Lazarus Group, a DPRK state-sponsored hacker group, carried out the largest theft of virtual currency to date, worth nearly $ 620 million from an online game-related blockchain project. Blender was used to process more than $ 20.5 million in illicit proceeds. Under the pressure of tough US and UN sanctions, the DPRK is resorting to illegal actions, including robberies of cryptocurrency exchanges.»

It is worth noting that this is the first time the US Treasury Department has added a crypto laundry to its sanctions list. However, this is only the beginning of a large-scale ban on any attempts to launder dirty money.