Lazarus Group’s $1B Crypto Trail Tracked By Bybit

The CEO of Bybit, Ben Zhou, has disclosed that over two-thirds of the $1.4 billion seized in a February network attack have remained observable as the exchange increases efforts to reclaim the funds.

In a post on X, Zhou notified the community that almost 70% of the seized funds “stay detectable.” He disclosed that 27.6% of the funds have vanished from sight, and at the same time, 3.8% have been locked. The undetectable part of the seized funds mostly goes through mixing services before being transferred to peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and over-the-counter (OTC) platforms using cross-chain bridges.

In recent times, we have noticed that the mixer commonly used by the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is Wasabi. After a specific amount of BTC was passed through Wasabi, a little part of it joined CryptoMixer, Tornado Cash and Railgun, Zhou wrote. “Then, several cross-chain and swap services were done using platforms like Thorchain, eXch, Lombard, LiFi, Stargate, and SunSwap,” he added.

Zhou explained that 944 Bitcoin, worth around $90 million, crossed through the Wasabi mixer. The seized assets then passed through various cross-chain platforms, including THORChain, eXch, Lombard, and LI.FI, Stargate, and SunSwap, before being transferred into P2P and OTC.

According to Zhou, around 84% of the seized assets, amounting to 432,748 Ether and worth around $1.21 billion, have been transferred from Ethereum to Bitcoin across THORChain. Out of that total, about two-thirds, around $960 million, was turned into 10,003 BTC and spread across 35,772 wallets. Zhou also mentioned that about $17 million in Ether is still on the Ethereum blockchain, stored in 12,490 wallets.

In the previous two months, Bybit has obtained 5,443 reward feedback following the announcement of its Lazarus reward program, intended to monitor the assets seized by the North Korean-linked Lazarus Group. Out of these submissions, 70 were considered valid.

Bybit introduced its bounty program in February, committing up to $140 million in rewards for details that may result in the freezing of seized assets. Up until now, the exchange has paid $2.3 million for 12 successful claims, with the most significant payout going to the Mantle layer-2 platform, which helped freeze $42 million in assets related to the breach.

Zhou said, “We encourage additional reports; we are looking for additional bounty hunters that can break down mixers because we will need a lot of help later on.

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