The crypto mixer is said to have processed $20.5 million out of the $620 million taken by North Korean Lazarus Group hackers.
The United States Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC) announced Friday that it was sanctioning cryptocurrency
mixer Blender.io for its role in laundering proceeds from the hacking of
Axie Infinity's Ronin Bridge. North Korean state-sponsored hackers
Lazarus Group have been identified as the perpetrators of the attack.
Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said in a statement:
“Today,
for the first time ever, Treasury is sanctioning a virtual currency
mixer. […] We are taking action against illicit financial activity by
the DPRK and will not allow state-sponsored thievery and its
money-laundering enablers to go unanswered.”
Under the
sanctions, all Blender.io property in the United States or in the
possession of U.S. persons is blocked and must be reported to OFAC.
According to OFAC, Blender.io processed $20.5 million out of approximately $620 million stolen from the Vietnam-based play-to-earn game in the form of roughly 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC).
OFAC also found during its investigation that Blender.io had
facilitated money laundering for Russia-linked ransomware groups
including Trickbot, Conti, Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Gandcrab. The Blender.io
website was offline at the time of writing.
The Treasury agency also added
the addresses of four wallets used by Lazarus Group to launder some of
the stolen funds to its List of Specially Designated Nationals and
Blocked Persons.
Related: US Treasury Dept sanctions 3 Ethereum addresses allegedly linked to North Korea
The Ronin Bridge hack took place on March 23, but it was only discovered the following week.
The bridge was accessed through game developer Sky Mavis. That
organization had been indefinitely whitelisted after helping process a
surge in transactions. Sky Mavis raised $150 million to reimburse users who lost money in the exploit, and Binance was able to recover $5.8 million of the money from 86 accounts. Lazarus Group was identified as the hackers by OFAC in mid-April.
source link : https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-mixer-sanctioned-by-us-treasury-for-role-in-axie-infinity-hack
