The online marketplace “Huione Guarantee” has reportedly received more than $35 million in funds from a cryptocurrency exchange breach that occurred in May.
According to reports, the hackers responsible for the $305 million DMM Bitcoin breach in May have laundered over $35 million at an online marketplace in Cambodia this month.
In a July 10 post, blockchain forensics firm Elliptic stated that the funds have been laundered to Huione Guarantee, which operates in Cambodia and has been associated with the nation’s “ruling Hun family,” as per cryptocurrency investigator ZachXBT.
According to Elliptic, the marketplace has transacted $11 billion in cryptocurrency as a result of breaches, swine butchering schemes, and other exploits.
According to ZachXBT, the breach is believed to be the work of the Lazarus Group, as there are similarities in off-chain indicators and laundering techniques.
Hackers have been putting stolen Bitcoin into privacy mixers, withdrawing it, and transferring it to Ethereum or Avalanche using the cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain.
ZachXBT stated that the funds are subsequently converted into USDT and bridged to Tron before being transferred to Huione.
Nevertheless, on July 12, stablecoin issuer Tether banned the Tron wallet address “TNVaK…s4Ug8,” preventing the payment of $28.2 million to Huione.
ZachXBT observed that this wallet was the same one that, over the span of three days, extracted approximately $14 million from the DMM Bitcoin breach.
Additionally, ZachXBT disclosed 538 wallet addresses that were associated with the Lazarus Group, Huione, and other entities associated with the DMM Bitcoin breach.
Following the exploitation of a critical vulnerability, Japan-based DMM Bitcoin suffered a loss of $305 million in Bitcoin. On May 30, hackers exploited the vulnerability to gain access to DMM Bitcoin’s infrastructure, resulting in a “unauthorized release” of Bitcoin.
About one week later, the cryptocurrency exchange raised $320 million to compensate users for their losses.
Cryptocurrency thefts have exceeded $1.4 billion in 2024, according to Cyvers, a blockchain security firm. In the past year, losses have increased by 900%, making centralized exchanges a primary target for hackers.
“This quarter has seen a substantial change in attack vectors, with centralized exchanges (CEX) being the primary target of key incidents, while decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols have demonstrated increased resilience,” stated Cyvers.
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