- Binance and Huobi froze accounts containing $1.4 million worth of digital assets.
- The frozen funds are connected to the Harmony Bridge heist in June 2022.
- The crypto analytics platform Elliptic probed into the situation and informed the exchanges to freeze accounts.
The leading crypto exchanges, Binance and Huobi have reportedly frozen accounts comprising almost $1.4 million worth of crypto assets connected to the Lazarus Group’s Harmony Bridge heist in June 2022.
Notably, on February 14, the crypto analytic platform Elliptic tweeted that the freezing of the accounts were made possible with help of “intel from Elliptic’s real-time investigations tools and a swift response by the receiving exchanges”:
Exchanges @binance and @HuobiGlobal today froze accounts containing $1.4 million stolen by North Korea’s Lazarus Group. This was made possible thanks to intel from Elliptic’s real-time investigations tools and a swift response by the receiving exchanges.https://t.co/f5bVpm8yfH— elliptic (@elliptic) February 14, 2023
Today, money laundering was detected and stolen funds linked to North Korea were frozen, in real-time. As an industry, we have the power and responsibility to prevent digital assets becoming a haven for money launderers and sanctions evaders, and ensure that they are a force for good.
Previously, on June 24, 2022, Harmony’s Horizon Bridge, the cross-chain bridge was exploited for $100 million in altcoins. As per Harmony’s tweet, “the Harmony team has identified 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 attack was traced back to the Lazarus Group, a cyberhacker group from North Korea.
Additionally, Elliptic told that after a detailed investigation the authority informed the exchanges which led them to freeze their accounts to block further illicit transactions. Moreover, the information shared on Elliptic’s Website read:
The stolen funds remained dormant until recently when our investigators began to see them funneled through complex chains of transactions, to exchanges. By promptly notifying these platforms about these illicit deposits, they were able to suspend these accounts and freeze funds.
It is noteworthy that the two platforms previously managed to freeze and recover 121 Bitcoins worth $2.5 million.
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