𝗨𝗣𝗗𝗔𝗧𝗘:𝗨𝗦𝗚𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿$𝟮𝟬𝗠$𝟮𝟬𝗠。
价值 2000 万美元的 USDC、USDT、aUSDC 和 ETH 已从与 USG 关联的地址 0xc9E6E51C7dA9FF1198fdC5b3369EfeDA9b19C34c 可疑地转移到… pic.twitter.com/UXn1atE1Wx
The stolen tokens include AUSDC stablecoin, worth $13.7 million; USDC stablecoin, worth $5.4 million; USDT stablecoin, worth $1.1 million; and ETH, worth $500,000. The suspect’s motives for the transfer remain unknown, but given the pattern of the transfers, this was not an internal transfer of funds but a malicious operation.
After the theft, the thief began to transfer the stolen funds to various non-custodial wallets. These are the platforms that do not compel users to maintain their funds with another party making it simpler for wrongdoers to escape. According to Arkham Intelligence, the hacker is likely to be laundering the proceeds through addresses associated with other known money laundering services.
ZachXBT, a popular crypto analyst, supported Arkham Intelligence’s conclusions, stating that the US government would not use services such as Switchain or N.Exchange for official transactions.
The funds in question are tied to the highest-profile hack of 2016 in which Bitfinex, a cryptocurrency exchange, was hacked. Ilya Lichtenstein and Heather Morgan, the couple behind the laundering of the stolen funds, were arrested by the U.S. authorities and entered a guilty plea to money laundering charges on August 2023. At the time of their arrest, the DOJ seized $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency.
At the time of this writing, the wallet has only $127 left in it, and it is in a meme coin associated with the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Should this be substantiated, this would be the latest incident in the ever-complicated Bitfinex story. The U.S. Marshals Service, which is responsible for managing seized property, would be forced to explain how much of the cryptocurrency could be lost.
Cryptocurrency hacks have been on the rise, and they are said to have increased by 900% in the first half of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year. In the second quarter of the year, the losses stood at nearly $1.4 billion. However, even with such an increasing rate, the Bitfinex hack is still one of the biggest hacks in the history of cryptocurrency thefts.