The U.Southward. Department of the Treasury's Function of Foreign Avails Control (OFAC) sanctioned two Chinese nationals accused of laundering cryptocurrency that was stolen in a 2022 crypto exchange hack. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, the Department of Justice appear an indictment for money laundering against the same two individuals.

Their action is linked to Lazarus Grouping, a hacking group allegedly connected to the North Korean government. OFAC accuses Yinyin Tian and Juiadong Li of profitable "a malicious cyber-enabled activity." Secretary Steven Mnuchin gave the post-obit statement:

"The North Korean regime has continued its widespread campaign of all-encompassing cyber-attacks on fiscal institutions to steal funds. The Us will go on to protect the global financial arrangement by holding answerable those who help Democratic people's republic of korea engage in cyber-crime."

Stole $250 meg, Laundered $100 million

On the split Department of Justice charges, Assistant Attorney Full general Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department's Criminal Sectionalization commented:

"These defendants allegedly laundered over a hundred million dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency to obscure transactions for the benefit of actors based in Due north Korea. Today's actions underscore that the Department will pierce the veil of anonymity provided past cryptocurrencies to hold criminals answerable, no matter where they are located."

The indictment alleges that "the North Korean co-conspirators," in 2022, stole $250 one thousand thousand worth of cryptocurrency from an exchange (may refer to the Coincheck hack); and that Tian Yinyin and Li Juiadong managed to launder $100 million worth of cryptocurrency between December 2022 and Apr 2022 for their North Korean accomplices.

UpBit?

According to the documents, "the North Korean co-conspirators" are also responsible for the hacking of a S Korean exchange in November of 2022, stealing $48.5 million worth of cryptocurrency — likely, a reference to the UpBit hacking, which had roughly the same amount of Ether stolen at the aforementioned fourth dimension.

Co-ordinate to the Department of Justice's press release:

"The civil forfeiture complaint specifically names 113 virtual currency accounts and addresses that were used by the defendants and unnamed co-conspirators to wash funds. The forfeiture complaint seeks to recover the funds, a portion of which has already been seized."

20 address vs. 113 addresses

The civil forfeiture complaint lists 113 cryptocurrencies "accounts and addresses that were used by the defendants and unnamed co-conspirators to launder funds. The forfeiture complaint seeks to recover the funds, a portion of which has already been seized."

However, the OFAC has added only xx bitcoin addresses to its Specially Designated Nationals list. Twelve are linked with Juiadong Li, while eight with Yinyin Tian.

Currently, none of those 20 addresses concur any bitcoins. Nonetheless, all of these addresses seem to belong to merely five wallets, that concord 139411.6022 BTC. Ane of those wallets is identified by two split wallet explorers as being on the Huobi substitution — though it is of course possible that both resources have misattributed it.

It is unclear at this time why OFAC just added 20 addresses to the list if the Department of Justice knows of 113 crypto addresses and accounts continued with the accused.