How Lazarus Group laundered $200M from 25 hacks
2024-04-29 • Zach XBT •
https://zachxbt.mirror.xyz/B0-UJtxN41cJhpPtKv0v2LZ8u-0PwZ4ecMPEdX4l8vE
ZachXBT traces roughly $200 million stolen across 25 cryptocurrency hacks from August 2020 to October 2023 to Lazarus Group, also described as Bluenoroff or APT38, a North Korea-linked financially motivated threat group. The investigation follows thefts affecting exchanges, DeFi projects, and individuals, including CoinBerry, Unibright, CoinMetro, Nexus Mutual, and EasyFi, with incidents involving hot-wallet breaches, private-key compromise, malicious transaction approval, and modified MetaMask activity. On-chain analysis shows stolen funds moving through intermediary wallets, Tornado Cash, ChipMixer, and Ren Protocol before consolidation and conversion paths involving Paxful, Noones, Bixin, and China-based OTC trader Wu Huihui. The excerpt provides multiple wallet addresses, mixer deposit and withdrawal transactions, and timing correlations used to support demixing and attribution confidence. The findings matter because they map a multi-year laundering playbook for DPRK-linked cryptocurrency thefts and identify exchange and OTC cash-out points used after mixing and bridging.