$30 million stolen cryptos from Axie Infinity by Lazarus hackers were recovered by the U.S. government with the help of blockchain analysts & FBI agents…
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In January, the United States government, with the help of blockchain analysts and FBI agents, recovered $30 million worth of bitcoin stolen by the North Korean threat group 'Lazarus' from the token-based 'play-to-earn' game Axie Infinity.
The retrieval news was shared at yesterday's AxieCon. The hosts emphasized it as a public success story, the fruit of widespread enforcement by law agencies and the private sector.
This is indeed the first time that stolen cryptocurrencies by an infamous North Korean hacker group have been successfully recovered; however, a report from Chainalysis suggests that it won't be the last.
According to the company's release, its _"Chainalysis Crypto Incident Response team played a role in these seizures,"_ employing _"advanced tracking techniques to follow stolen assets to pay out points and working with law enforcement and industry players to freeze funds immediately."_
While the confiscated funds will eventually return to the Axie Infinity player community, the game's publishers warned that this might take years.
Chainalysis indicates that the Korean hackers used the standard five-step laundering technique described in this section.
As a result of the recent liabilities placed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on Tornado Cash, Lazarus was compelled to find other means of concealing the whereabouts of the remaining one-third of the stolen funds, which he did by building bridges across blockchains.
Chainalysis aided law enforcement agencies in their efforts to freeze and recover some of the stolen assets by tracing the "chain-hopping" and subsequently attempted crypto exchanges.
Lazarus's effort at a chain hop was one of many. This was just one of Lazarus's many attempts to jump multiple links in the chain (Chainalysis)
With an estimated $620 million in losses due to Lazarus' Axie Infinity hack, the sum recovered accounts for just around 5% of the total value and 10% of the cryptocurrency amount.
Lazarus has taken a big hit, showing that stolen digital assets are challenging to transfer around, launder, and convert to fiat money.
Since Lazarus is among the most technically sophisticated threat actors, law enforcement's message has resonated throughout the whole DeFi hacking community.
The majority of the stolen monies from Axie Infinity are still sitting in bitcoin wallets, and the threat actor is running low on trustworthy choices for paying them out, according to a report by Chainalysis.
Because of this, the New York-based blockchain analysis firm is optimistic that more seizures and retrievals will occur in the years to come.
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