Crypto mixer sanctioned by US Treasury for role in Axie Infinity hack

The US Treasury Division Workplace of Overseas Belongings Management (OFAC) introduced Friday that it was sanctioning cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io for its position in laundering proceeds from the hacking of Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge. North Korean state-sponsored hackers Lazarus Group have been recognized because the perpetrators of the assault. 

Treasury Beneath Secretary for Terrorism and Monetary Intelligence Brian E. Nelson said in a press release:

“Right this moment, for the primary time ever, Treasury is sanctioning a digital forex mixer. […] We’re taking motion towards illicit monetary exercise by the DPRK and won’t enable state-sponsored thievery and its money-laundering enablers to go unanswered.”

Beneath the sanctions, all Blender.io property in the US or within the possession of U.S. individuals is blocked and have to be reported to OFAC.

In keeping with OFAC, Blender.io processed $20.5 million out of roughly $620 million stolen from the Vietnam-based play-to-earn game in the form of roughly 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC). OFAC additionally discovered throughout its investigation that Blender.io had facilitated cash laundering for Russia-linked ransomware teams together with Trickbot, Conti, Ryuk, Sodinokibi and Gandcrab. The Blender.io web site was offline on the time of writing.

The Treasury company additionally added the addresses of 4 wallets utilized by Lazarus Group to launder among the stolen funds to its Listing of Specifically Designated Nationals and Blocked Individuals.

Associated: US Treasury Dept sanctions 3 Ethereum addresses allegedly linked to North Korea

There was a safety breach on the Ronin Community.https://t.co/ktAp9w5qpP

— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) March 29, 2022

The Ronin Bridge hack came about on March 23, but it surely was only discovered the following week. The bridge was accessed via recreation developer Sky Mavis. That group had been indefinitely whitelisted after serving to course of a surge in transactions. Sky Mavis raised $150 million to reimburse customers who misplaced cash within the exploit, and Binance was in a position to recover $5.8 million of the money from 86 accounts. Lazarus Group was identified as the hackers by OFAC in mid-April.