- Binance and Huobi froze accounts containing $1.4 million price of digital belongings.
- The frozen funds are related to the Concord Bridge heist in June 2022.
- The crypto analytics platform Elliptic probed into the state of affairs and knowledgeable the exchanges to freeze accounts.
The main crypto exchanges, Binance and Huobi have reportedly frozen accounts comprising nearly $1.4 million price of crypto belongings related to the Lazarus Group’s Concord Bridge heist in June 2022.
Notably, on February 14, the crypto analytic platform Elliptic tweeted that the freezing of the accounts had been made potential with assist of “intel from Elliptic’s real-time investigations instruments and a swift response by the receiving exchanges”:
In the present day, cash laundering was detected and stolen funds linked to North Korea had been frozen, in real-time. As an business, we have now the facility and accountability to forestall digital belongings changing into a haven for cash launderers and sanctions evaders, and be certain that they’re a power for good.
Beforehand, on June 24, 2022, Concord’s Horizon Bridge, the cross-chain bridge was exploited for $100 million in altcoins. As per Concord’s tweet, “the Concord crew has recognized a theft occurring this morning on the Horizon bridge amounting to approx. $100M”.
Later, in January 2023, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that the assault was traced again to the Lazarus Group, a cyberhacker group from North Korea.
Moreover, Elliptic instructed that after an in depth investigation the authority knowledgeable the exchanges which led them to freeze their accounts to dam additional illicit transactions. Furthermore, the knowledge shared on Elliptic’s Web site learn:
The stolen funds remained dormant till not too long ago when our investigators started to see them funneled by way of complicated chains of transactions, to exchanges. By promptly notifying these platforms about these illicit deposits, they had been capable of droop these accounts and freeze funds.
It’s noteworthy that the 2 platforms beforehand managed to freeze and recuperate 121 Bitcoins price $2.5 million.