Hackers, who are likely working for the North Korean regime, have successfully converted at least $300 million from a record $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency into untraceable funds, reports the BBC, writes UNN.
Details
The criminals, known as the Lazarus Group, seized a vast amount of digital tokens during the hack of the ByBit cryptocurrency exchange two weeks ago.
Since then, it has been a game of cat and mouse to track and block the hackers' successful conversion of cryptocurrency into usable cash.
Experts say the infamous hacking team works nearly 24 hours a day, potentially directing money towards the regime's military developments.
"Every minute counts for the hackers trying to cover their tracks, and they are extremely skilled at what they do," said Dr. Tom Robinson, co-founder of the crypto investigators Elliptic.
According to Dr. Robinson, among all criminals associated with cryptocurrency, North Korea is the best at laundering cryptocurrency.
"I imagine they have a whole room of people doing this with automated tools and years of experience. We also see from their activity that they take only a few hours of breaks each day, possibly working in shifts to convert cryptocurrency into cash," he noted.
Elliptic's analysis aligns with ByBit, which states that 20% of the funds are now "in the shadows," meaning they are unlikely to be recovered.
Supplement
On February 21, the criminals hacked one of ByBit's suppliers to secretly change the address of the digital wallet to which 401,000 Ethereum cryptocurrency was sent.
ByBit thought it was transferring funds to its own digital wallet, but instead sent them to the hackers.
The U.S. and its allies accuse North Koreans of carrying out dozens of hacking attacks in recent years to fund the regime's military and nuclear developments.