North Korean hackers used Binance to move $5.4 million of stolen money from a Slovakian company
A North Korean hacking group called Lazarus broke into a Slovakian crypto exchange and stole virtual currency worth 5.4 Million Dollars in September 2020. Washington stated that the cyber heist was organized in order to fund the North Korean nuclear weapons programme. Slovakia’s national police stated later sometime that the hackers opened two dozens of anonymous accounts on Binance which is the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange company for converting the stolen funds to hide the money trail.
The Lazarus hackers took only 9 minutes for using encrypted email addresses as the medium of identification to open accounts on Binance. After converting the stolen money to crypto they traded it from Eterbase, the European cryptocurrency asset exchange company.
Binance exposed the records to the police and added that they had no idea whose money they were exchanging because of the anonymity of the accounts. Eterbase’s co-founder Robert Auxt said, “Binance had no idea who was moving the money through their exchange.”
However, Reuters calculated from a court record that Binance prepared transactions of at least 2.35 Billion Dollars worked up from the hacks, investment frauds, and illegal drug deals.
The U.S. government’s crypto researcher concluded in a report in 2020 that Binance received funds up to 770 Million Dollars in 2019 alone.
Binance CEO Chengpeng Zhao is accused by Twitter users of conducting “Bad business etiquette,” as the CEO declined all claims and refused to be interviewed.
Reuters then concluded that Binance took weak participation in the activities of money laundering in January and today.
