Security News > 2022 > May > US sanctions Bitcoin laundering service used by North Korean hackers
The U.S. Department of Treasury today sanctioned cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io used last month by the North Korean-backed Lazarus hacking group to launder funds stolen from Axie Infinity's Ronin bridge.
In the wake of the attack, Sky Mavis revealed that hackers breached the Ronin bridge on March 23 to steal 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC tokens in two transactions worth $617 million at the time, the largest cryptocurrency hack in history.
The FBI linked the Lazarus hackers to the incident in April and sanctioned the 0x098B716B8Aaf21512996dC57EB0615e2383E2f96 address that received the stolen funds.
Today, the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Lazarus used the Blender.io virtual currency mixer to launder over $20.5 million of the illicit proceeds.
Last year, in another joint advisory, they shared info on malicious and fake crypto-trading applications injected with AppleJeus malware used by Lazarus to steal cryptocurrency from individuals and companies worldwide.
A confidential United Nations report from 2019 revealed that the North Korean hackers stole an estimated $2 billion in at least 35 cyberattacks against banks and crypto exchanges across more than a dozen countries.
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