United States authorities have imposed sanctions on crypto mixers which have allegedly laundered more than $7 billion over the past 3 years, which also helped North Korean hackers evade US fines.
Earlier this week, the US treasury stated that Tornado Cash has been regularly utilised by malicious cyber individuals since its inception in 2019. North Korean hackers; Lazarus Group back in March allegedly laundered around $455 million dollars, while also laundering $96m from June’s hack of the Harmony Bridge.
OFAC, or the Office of Foreign Assets Control are the designated body within the US watchdog authority who are attempting this crackdown on sanctions evasion using cryptocurrencies. These authorities are closely watching these ‘mixers’ because they implement an obscure trail of transfers which would typically be publicly accessible via digital ledgers and explorers of underlying chains. Earlier this year, OFAC also imposed sanctions on Blender, another mixer for its role in assisting the Lazarus group (Sanctioned in the US in 2019) to launder $20 million in illicit funds. Tornado Cash was also a platform used to move and launder around $7.8 million for last week’s Nomad Exchange hack. On Twitter, Tornado Cash stated that it used a tool through Chainalysis to block OFAC-sanctioned addresses from accessing its technology.
This designation also comes in during the wake of an order signed by the US president earlier in 2022 for the government to further its ability in cracking down on the use of digital assets in cyber attacks and malicious finance vehicles. Also earlier in 2022, the US treasury reported on a national money laundering risk assessment that described the use of anonymity-enhancement-technology, such as mixers as a growing trend across the sphere.
Conclusion
It is now more than ever that individuals and businesses utilise onchain analysis tools to make sure they are dealing with illicit wallets, to safeguard their funds and be sure they are not working with any wallets that have been involved in mixers, money laundering activities and terrorist financing organisations.
Individuals interested in performing these checks on wallets, even on an individual basis and level can do so by utilising Sekuritance’s portal via the blockchain analytics section to analyse wallets on more than 17+ chains.
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