The revenue from the mammoth in February comes from an unknown Greek crypto exchange by authorities in the country, a $1.5 billion Crypto Exchange Bybit hack.
The attack was considered the biggest crypto exchange in history and was later pursued by investigators on the chain by North Korean Lazarus Group. State-sponsored groups have been linked to many well-known cyberattacks both within and outside the crypto world in recent years.
Charalambos Vourilotis, president of Greek anti-money laundering, said in May that “suspecting” transactions were detected by registered users of the Greek exchange, according to a press conference reported by a Greek newspaper. proto thema. User Ethereum wallet reportedly received a “large amount” of cryptocurrency.
After an investigation by analysts, the transaction was linked to funds stolen from Buybit Hack. The seizure order reportedly was issued for funding by the authorities of the user’s crypto wallet, and a report was submitted to the national prosecutor’s office for further legal action.
Many well-known international exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken and Gemini, are permitted to operate in Greece, but the country also has several locally based, domestically focused exchanges, such as BCASH.
The announcement could have a wider knock-on effect for Greek crypto users. proto thema Cryptocurrency reports that it is “still under scrutiny” by the country’s money laundering agency.
Tracking stolen funds on Bybit
Bibit was able to lean on short-term “bridge loans” from other crypto companies such as Galaxy Digital, Falconx and Wintermute to maintain liquidity right after the catastrophic attacks, but much of the stolen funds have yet to be recovered.
Bybit claims it had recovered $42.89 million in assets at the time of writing, about 88.87% of the missing codes that could be traced to investigators as of late March.
However, according to BYBIT, the use of anonymously provided tools such as cryptocurrency mixers such as Wasabi, Cryptomixer, Railgun and Tornado Cash has made roughly 7.59% of the funds “dark.” An additional 3.54% of funds have been frozen through collaborations with other exchanges.
The report on the incident focuses on the complexity and speed of North Korean teams’ money laundering operations, saying this suggests the existence of complex cryptographic development infrastructure in neighbouring countries like China.
Edited by Steve Graves
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