US recovers over $30M in crypto looted by Lazarus hackers

U.S. authorities were able to seize more than $30 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen by North Korea state-sponsored cybercriminal operation Lazarus Group from Axie Infinity, according to The Hacker News. "The seizures represent approximately 10% of the total funds stolen from Axie Infinity (accounting for price differences between time stolen and seized), and demonstrate that it is becoming more difficult for bad actors to successfully cash out their ill-gotten crypto gains," said Chainalysis Senior Director of Investigations Erin Plante. Recovery of the stolen funds comes after Lazarus stole $620 million from decentralized finance platform Ronin Network, $545 million of which has been laundered using Tornado Cash. However, the blocklisting of Tornado Cash has prompted Lazarus to transition to crypto bridges instead. "The hacker bridged ETH from the Ethereum blockchain to the BNB chain and then swapped that ETH for USDD, which was then bridged to the BitTorrent chain," Plante added.