U.S. Treasury Takes Aim at Cryptocurrency Tumblers


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The United States is Increasingly attentive to cryptocurrency-related fraud. For the first time, the U.S. Treasury has just to issue sanctions against a cryptocurrency mixer called Blender.io.

The cryptocurrency blender to launder dirty money

Recently, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced. that it will hire 20 new investigators For its crypto asset monitoring unit. The U.S. is getting up to speed with the hackers. The cryptocurrency blender literally allows for “mix potentially identifiable or contaminated crypto asset funds with others to obscure the trail to the original source of the fund.”. This is a service that is not trivial and is obviously used for money laundering. The U.S. Treasury issued its first sanctions against Blender.io, for allegedly “helped North Korea launder more than $20.5 million in crypto assets.”.

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This financial windfall came from the digital heist of Axie Infinity (625 million dollars stolen in April 2022) and other cybercrimes. The measures taken by the U.S. Treasury against this cryptocurrency mixer block all of Blender.io’s assets in the U.S.as well as related transactions in the United States. The blocking prevents the funds of the sanctioned entities from changing hands and should provide some clarity. The sanctions come days after authorities attributed the Axie Infinity cyberattack to the Lazarus Groupa group funded by the North Korean government.

North Korea in the sights of the US Treasury

For several years, North Korea is accused of being the source of numerous cyber attacks. The ransoms allow it to finance its weapons programs. The country would have, for example Collected $400 million in cryptocurrencies in 2021. North Korean hackers managed to break into at least seven crypto exchanges to steal money. Cybersecurity agency Kapersky noted that the hackers were spoofing the names of venture capital firms, contacting startups in the cryptocurrency world in order to steal them.

The U.S. Treasury operation identified four digital wallets that the Lazarus Group hackers allegedly used to launder the rest of the crypto-assets stolen in the attack on Axie Infinity. The agency noted that most of the cryptocurrency-related activity were legal and that it was only targeting cryptocurrency mixers who help criminals launder their dirty money. However, there is a very clear warning here: the United States is prepared to sanction crypto asset services if they help cybercriminals achieve their ends.

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