Officials in the United States have made a breakthrough in recovering money lost as a result of the 2021 Uranium Finance steal, resulting in the seizure of$ 31 million in bitcoin.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York ( SDNY ) and Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego coordinated their efforts, the SDNY announced in a tweet on Monday.
The exploit, which took place on April 28, 2021, exploited a risk in Uranium Finance’s bright contracts, enabling the intruder to raise the platform’s balance and remove$ 50 million in several cryptocurrencies.
The stolen funds included$ 36.8 million in BNB ( BNB) and stablecoin Binance USD ( BUSD ), along with Bitcoin ( BTC ), Ethereum ( ETH), Polkadot ( DOT ), Cardano ( ADA ), and Uranium’s native token U92.
During the changeover from its process to type V2.1, the now-defunct DeFi system was attacked.
A bug in the platform’s pair contracts —used to manage liquidity pairs in its automated market maker ( AMM) —enabled the attacker to withdraw nearly all assets from the protocol.
Instead of relying on a standard purchase book, AMMs are employed in distributed exchanges to make it possible to trade cryptocurrencies directly with one another using pools of assets.
The attacker used the Ethereum-based gold mixing Tornado Cash to launder the stolen funds before moving them to central exchanges, creating a complicated trail for authorities to follow.
The authorities have set up a dedicated email–UraniumVictims @hsi.dhs. gov–for survivors of the exploit to record their problems.
Since the invasion, the system’s website and social media haven’t responded, leaving investors without remedy.
ZachXBT, a anonymous on-chain bitcoin detective, played a significant role in the investigation into the laundering process.
In a statement now, ZachXBT referenced his December 2023 document detailing how the stolen funds were funneled through Tornado Cash and eventually used to buy high-value trading cards, exclusively” Magic: The Gathering” accounts.
” Magic: The Gathering” trading accounts are collectible tickets used in a common technique game, with some unusual accounts fetching substantial value.
ZachXBT’s December research revealed that the thief withdrew 11, 200+ ETH, worthwhile$ 25 million, from the gold mixing, moving it through many names before spending millions on buying cards, which were then sent to a U. S. based agent.
This procedure involved the conversion of ETH into a wrapped token (wETH) and then back again, making it more difficult for exchanges to identify and flag suspicious transactions, thus avoiding traditional anti-money laundering ( AML) checks.
ZachXBT has assisted in the investigation of those responsible for another significant blockchain attacks in addition to his work on the Uranium Finance exploit.
His examination was crucial in uncovering the culprits responsible for the recent Bybit change exploit, one of the biggest thefts in crypto history, where over$ 1.4 billion in property were taken.
According to the study of the crypto security investigator, the Lazarus Group is a well-known spying organization from North Korea that has been the target of numerous well-known crypto attacks in recent years.
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