{
	"id": "4eee09ff-f7f3-42df-8af0-e3bd6e758806",
	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:19:38.770291Z",
	"updated_at": "2026-04-10T03:38:20.526116Z",
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	"sha1_hash": "0cf2a2c803e65301c5cb51352da4a551d0ad99aa",
	"title": "North Koreans finish initial laundering stage after more than $1 billion stolen from Bybit",
	"llm_title": "",
	"authors": "",
	"file_creation_date": "0001-01-01T00:00:00Z",
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	"plain_text": "North Koreans finish initial laundering stage after more than $1\r\nbillion stolen from Bybit\r\nBy Jonathan Greig\r\nPublished: 2025-03-04 · Archived: 2026-04-05 12:49:35 UTC\r\nThe suspected North Korean hackers behind the theft of more than $1 billion from crypto platform Bybit have\r\ncompleted the initial stage of laundering the funds.\r\nExperts from multiple blockchain security companies said Monday that the hackers were able to move all of the\r\nstolen ETH coins to new addresses — the first step taken before the funds can be laundered further. \r\nAri Redbord, a senior official at TRM Labs, told Recorded Future News that the laundering process relied heavily\r\non decentralized finance (DeFi) tools that helped obscure the origins of the stolen assets. \r\n“This rapid and methodical operation indicates an unprecedented level of operational efficiency, posing serious\r\nchallenges for investigators,” Redbord said. \r\nLast week, the FBI attributed the attack on Bybit to a well-known North Korean group known as TraderTraitor or\r\nLazarus, and urged the cryptocurrency community to help contain the $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from\r\nthe exchange.\r\n“TraderTraitor actors are proceeding rapidly and have converted some of the stolen assets to Bitcoin and other\r\nvirtual assets dispersed across thousands of addresses on multiple blockchains,” the FBI alert said. “It is expected\r\nthese assets will be further laundered and eventually converted to fiat currency.”\r\nAt the time of the FBI advisory, TRM Labs said about $400 million had been laundered. \r\n‘Scale and velocity’\r\nExperts at another blockchain security firm, Elliptic, said the North Korean group was forced to pause the\r\nlaundering process on Friday because the service they were using, eXch, couldn’t handle the volume of\r\ntransactions. eXch does not use a “Know Your Customer” (KYC) protocol, meaning no proof of identity is\r\nrequired.\r\nThe laundering resumed on Saturday and allegedly accelerated. \r\n“This rapid laundering suggests that North Korea has either expanded its money laundering infrastructure or that\r\nunderground financial networks, particularly in China, have enhanced their capacity to absorb and process illicit\r\nfunds,” Redbord said. \r\n“The scale and velocity of this operation present new challenges for investigators, as traditional anti-money\r\nlaundering mechanisms struggle to keep pace with the high volume of illicit transactions.”\r\nhttps://therecord.media/north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack\r\nPage 1 of 3\n\nTRM Labs has tracked previous thefts by North Korean actors and found a similar playbook, where the hackers\r\nuse DeFi platforms to convert funds into Bitcoin before using mixers to obfuscate the source of the\r\ncryptocurrency. \r\nNick Carlsen, TRM Labs’ North Korean expert and a former FBI official, said the Bybit attack “indicates that the\r\nregime is intensifying its ‘flood the zone’ technique — overwhelming compliance teams, blockchain analysts, and\r\nlaw enforcement agencies with rapid, high-frequency transactions across multiple platforms, thereby complicating\r\ntracking efforts.”\r\nThe Dubai-based Bybit has launched a recovery bounty program and offered 10% of the recovered funds to\r\nanyone who helps in tracing and freezing the stolen cryptocurrency. \r\nAs of Thursday, 12 “hunters” had been awarded about $4.2 million so far and CEO Ben Zhou released a\r\npreliminary report on the incident from incident response company Sygnia and financial security firm Verichains. \r\nTRM Labs said about 77% of the funds are still traceable and they are working alongside other blockchain\r\nsecurity funds to help stop the money from being laundered further. The FBI in its advisory urged DeFi services\r\nand other entities to block transactions with or derived from addresses used by TraderTraitor actors.\r\nThe Bybit attack is the largest crypto hack of all time, far surpassing previous headline-grabbing thefts of more\r\nthan $600 million from DeFi platforms like Ronin Network and Poly Network.\r\nNorth Korea’s Lazarus Group has stolen billions worth of cryptocurrency over the last 9 years, with blockchain\r\nmonitoring firm Chainalysis saying hacking groups connected to North Korea’s government stole $1.34 billion\r\nworth of cryptocurrency across 47 incidents in 2024.\r\nCorrection: A previous version of this article misspelled the company name Sygnia.\r\nGet more insights with the\r\nRecorded Future\r\nIntelligence Cloud.\r\nLearn more.\r\nNo previous article\r\nNo new articles\r\nhttps://therecord.media/north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack\r\nPage 2 of 3\n\nJonathan Greig\r\nis a Breaking News Reporter at Recorded Future News. Jonathan has worked across the globe as a journalist since\r\n2014. Before moving back to New York City, he worked for news outlets in South Africa, Jordan and Cambodia.\r\nHe previously covered cybersecurity at ZDNet and TechRepublic.\r\nSource: https://therecord.media/north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack\r\nhttps://therecord.media/north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack\r\nPage 3 of 3",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"ETDA"
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	"references": [
		"https://therecord.media/north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack"
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		"north-koreans-initial-laundering-bybit-hack"
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			"updated_at": "2026-04-10T02:00:03.709243Z",
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			"main_name": "NICKEL ACADEMY",
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