Greece Seizes Cryptocurrency Linked to '$1.5 Billion Bybit Hack Attack' Involving North Korea

BlockBeats News, July 10th, the Greek authorities have carried out the country's first cryptocurrency seizure operation, freezing part of the funds related to the North Korean Lazarus Group in the record-breaking $1.5 billion Bybit hack incident that occurred in February this year.

Greek anti-money laundering agency traced a suspicious transaction that was flowing to a wallet linked to the initial theft. According to Greek Minister of Economy and Finance Kyriakos Pierrakakis, this wallet was associated with a "Greek platform providing exchange services." Analysts used the Chainalysis Reactor tool to map the fund flows and "clearly establish a connection between the cryptocurrency in the suspicious user's wallet and the main wallet in the Bybit hack."

With this evidence, the anti-money laundering agency was able to issue an asset freeze order to lock the funds before they disappeared. According to Pierrakakis, the action by the Greek anti-money laundering agency has helped return approximately €10 million (about $11.7 million) to the victims, but it is not clear if this is directly related to the frozen assets in this case.

In the past, hackers have moved funds through mixers like Wasabi and Tornado Cash, cross-chain bridges, and peer-to-peer platforms. Bybit's public "LazarusBounty" dashboard shows that around $72 million (equivalent to 5% of the stolen Ethereum) has been frozen, with about a third of the funds still traceable. According to the dashboard, around $870 million of the stolen funds have "completely disappeared."