North Korea's Lazarus Group Launders $1.4B in Largest Crypto Theft, $16M via Wasabi Mixer

The cryptocurrency exchange Bybit has disclosed that hackers, attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group, have stolen $1.4 billion in what is considered the largest crypto theft to date. The stolen funds, equivalent to approximately 500,000 ETH, have been partially laundered using crypto mixers such as Wasabi, CryptoMixer, Railgun, and Tornado Cash.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou revealed that 88.87% of the stolen funds remain traceable, 7.59% have become untraceable, and 3.54% have been frozen through coordination with exchanges. Of the stolen assets, 86.29% (approximately 440,091 ETH) have been converted to Bitcoin and distributed across 9,117 wallets, averaging 1.41 BTC per wallet. Additionally, 193 BTC ($16 million) has been funneled through the Wasabi mixer to peer-to-peer vendors.

The Lazarus Group's use of multiple crypto mixers has exponentially increased the difficulty of tracking the stolen funds. Bybit has launched a bounty program, which has received 5,012 reports so far, to gather intelligence and continues to work with security experts to recover the stolen funds.

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