According to blockchain data, a hacker who stole $125 million from Poloniex’s hot wallets in November has transferred 1,100 ether (ETH) to the sanctioned coin mixer Tornado Cash. The value of the transferred ether is approximately $3.3 million, and it was sent to Tornado Cash in batches of 100 ETH each on Tuesday after remaining dormant for 178 days.
Additionally, the same hacker sent 501 bitcoin (BTC) worth $32 million to an unlabelled wallet on April 30. As of now, the hacker still holds a total of $181 million worth of cryptocurrency across various blockchains, according to data from Arkham.
Tornado Cash is a protocol designed to obfuscate cryptocurrency tokens by mixing assets across multiple wallets over an extended period. However, it was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022, shortly after being used by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus in an attempt to conceal funds obtained from the $625 million Axie Infinity exploit.
In March, blockchain security firm Elliptic reported that the Lazarus Group had utilized Tornado Cash to launder $12 million from the Heco Bridge hack, which occurred shortly after the Poloniex hack.
May 2024, Cryptoniteuae
