Elliptic identifies illicit money movement from Atomic’s $35 million wallet hack to Sinbad.io, a crypto mixer with ties to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
Blockchain compliance firm Elliptic has discovered that $35 million worth of money stolen in the recent Atomic Wallet hack has been funneled to Sinbad.io, a cryptocurrency mixer linked to the notorious Lazarus Group in North Korea.
The announcement came on June 5, and it was reported that Sinbad.io had previously laundered more than $100 million in cryptocurrency stolen by the Lazarus Group.
While the amount sent to Sinbad.io was not disclosed, Elliptic clarified that the stolen assets were converted into Bitcoin (BTC) and later hidden using a mixer.
The analytics firm also suggested that Sinbad.io may be a modified version of Blender.io, another mixer known to launder money from the Lazarus Group and the first to face sanctions from the US Treasury Department.
On June 3, several Atomic Wallet users reported that their accounts had been hacked, with losses amounting to $35 million. However, the team downplayed the incident, stating that less than 1% of monthly active users were affected.
The Atomic Wallet team claims to have made efforts to recover the stolen funds. However, recent findings by Elliptic indicate that recovery may be challenging for many affected users.
Popular blockchain technology @Zachxbt tracks transactions associated with funds stolen from Atomic Wallet. According to the analyst, of the $35 million stolen by the hackers, $1 million belonging to one of the victims has now been recovered.
