Atomic Wallet hackers have been seen laundering huge sums of Ripple tokens (XRP) through centralized exchanges (CEX). This can be seen from the XRP Forensics report.
Atomic Wallet hackers launder millions of XRP
Atomic Wallet hackers have been discovered moving huge amounts of illegally acquired XRP tokens through exchanges. According to recent research by XRP Forensics, Binance, KuCoin, WhiteBit, OKEx, Huobi Global, and MEXC are some of the CEXs that have provided an opportunity for attackers to launder.
XRP Forensics is a team of dedicated forensic experts dedicated to preventing and countering financial crime on the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The attackers began moving funds on Monday, generating new blockchain addresses as part of a strategy to bypass blocklists set by crypto exchanges, the team said.
According to the report, over 280,000 XRP tokens have been sent to Binance Exchange. In addition, over 200,000 Ripple tokens have been sent to several other exchanges, including KuCoin, WhiteBit, OKX, and Huobi Global. The forensic team also suspects that some of the funds are going through MEXC.
The XRP Forensics team has also committed to recovering the stolen tokens by partnering with the respective platforms. According to them:
We monitor and work closely with exchanges to try and capture as much as possible.
More details have come to light, they said: Reports surfaced on Wednesday showing funds “leaked” through the Orbit decentralized bridge, where approximately three million XRP tokens were quickly laundered.
Hackers suspected in connection with the North Korean group Lazarus
Atomic Wallet hackers have been linked to the infamous North Korean group Lazarus, and blockchain forensics experts Elliptic traced $35 million to a coin mixer that the Lazarus Group often uses to launder crypto assets. Notably, the stolen funds were exchanged for Bitcoin (BTC) and then laundered through Sinbad.io.
The Lazarus Group is known for using blockchain bridges to move stolen funds.