Ronin Bridge Hack: U.S. seizes $30 million worth crypto assets

ambcrypto.com:

The United States seized $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen by North Korea-linked hackers. The news was  released by blockchain data platform Chainalysis.

In a recently published blog, Erin Plante, Senior Director of Investigations, Chainalysis shed further light on the matter. He wrote that Chainalysis’ collaboration with law enforcement and leading crypto organizations has helped the authorities. Together, they could seize more than $30 million worth of cryptocurrency.

This was the cryptocurrency that was stolen from the Ronin Network by North Korean-linked hacking group, Lazarus.

The Ronin Network executes transactions related to the gaming company, Axie Infinity. On 29 March 2022, the Ronin Blockchain teaminformed in a blogpost that it had been exploited for 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC. These two transactions led to a collective loss of $625 million. 

 The DeFi protocol said that it was working directly with various government agencies to ensure that the criminals are brought to justice. The laundered assets were distributed over 12,000 different crypto addresses as per Chainalysis.

 The firm also identified Tornado Cash, a decentralized cryptocurrency mixer, as the primary tool used by the hackers to launder crypto assets. In August 2022, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash for laundering more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency.  

OFAC also underlined its usage in laundering over $455 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen from Axie Infinity. It also noted the role of the Lazarus Group, a Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) state-sponsored hacking group.

Furthermore, in March, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued apress