The FBI says North Korea was behind the theft of more than $6bn from cryptocurrency exchange Binance last week. A brief statement published October 31 attributed the breach to the TraderTraitor group, also known as Jade Sleet, UNC4899 and Slow Pisces.
The FBI, working with the US Secret Service and the IRS Criminal Investigation unit, said it observed TraderTraitor actors converting stolen assets primarily into Ethereum (ETH). The agencies said these assets are expected to be further laundered through decentralized finance products and instant swap services.
The FBI and its partners urged crypto entities, including THORNode operators, RPC node operators, instant exchanges, DeFi services, blockchain analytics firms and other virtual asset service providers, to block transactions with or derived from addresses the group is using to launder the funds.
Blockchain analytics company Elliptic said around $2.9bn of the stolen funds have been frozen or seized. It estimated the attacker still controls about $3.25bn in assets that an issuer cannot freeze, spread across more than 800 addresses. That includes around 584,000 ETH ($1.32bn), 18,327 BTC ($1.42bn) and