Stabilization currency issuers have frozen nearly $5 million held by North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group after investigators traced the funds.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed this on X Post on September 14th.
Circle freezes 4 months later than other stablecoin issuers
ZachXBT reported that stablecoin issuers Tether, Circle, Paxos, and Techterix have blacklisted two addresses containing $4.96 million in assets. However, these wallets still hold $720,000 in DAI and $313,000 in ETH, which are not frozen.
The funds are tied to a wider investigation conducted by ZachXBT in April, which found that the Lazarus Group laundered more than $200 million in 25 cryptocurrency-related hacks between 2020 and 2023.
ZachXBT noted that $6.98 million was frozen in this investigation, with $1.65 million held on multiple exchanges. He did not disclose which exchanges were involved.
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Meanwhile, ZachXBT criticized Circle, the issuer of USDC, for delaying the blocking of funds. He claimed that Circle and its CEO Jeremy Allaire are focused on profiteering rather than caring about the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
The blockchain investigator alleged that Circle blacklisted Lazarus Group funds more than four months later than other major stablecoin issuers. He expressed disappointment with the company’s inaction, noting that Circle did little to prevent money laundering on its platform.
“Circle publicly pretends to be a stablecoin that helps protect the ecosystem, but in reality it is not,” ZachXBT said .
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He also criticized the company for having over 1,000 employees despite not having an incident response team to block funds after a DeFi hack or exploit .
Investigators have linked the Lazarus Group to several major cryptocurrency hacks , including the recent $20 million hack of the IndoDax exchange . Reports indicate that the group has siphoned off about $3 billion from the cryptocurrency industry over the years. Authorities suspect North Korea is using the stolen funds to fund its weapons programs .
