US Treasury Slaps Sinbad Mixer with Sanctions in Latest Crypto Crackdown
Follows previous OFAC sanctions against other prominent mixers, Blender and Tornado Cash.
Sinbad’s US-based assets frozen as result of sanctions, users of Sinbad may also be exposed to sanctions.
Some evidence Sinbad was created and run by same group behind Blender.
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has announced they’ve sanctioned the crypto mixer service sinbad.io, saying it acts as a key money laundering vehicle for the hacker group known as the Lazarus Group.
Source: Sinbad.io
Mixers like Sinbad are used to mask the origin and destination of cryptocurrency transactions. They have potentially legitimate uses such as preserving users’ privacy but they have been widely used for illicit purposes.
Treasury officials didn’t put a precise dollar figure on the assets Lazarus Group had laundered through Sinbad, but it did say “large portions” of the assets stolen through the huge Atomic Wallet, Horizon Bridge and Axie Infinity hacks had been processed by the mixer.
As a result of the sanctions against Sinbad, all of its US-based assets have been frozen and any US-based users may themselves be exposed to sanctions.
Lazarus Group’s Long History Of Hacking and Mixing
Speaking about the sanctions levelled against Sinbad, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo said regulators will continue to target any services that enable money laundering through digital assets while attempting to continue to encourage legitimate innovation with the technology:
Mixing services that enable criminal actors, such as the Lazarus Group, to launder stolen assets will face serious consequences. The Treasury Department and its U.S. government partners stand ready to deploy all tools at their disposal to prevent virtual currency mixers, like Sinbad, from facilitating illicit activities. While we encourage responsible innovation in the digital asset ecosystem, we will not hesitate to take action against illicit actors.
According to the US Treasury the Lazarus Group is a North Korea-based, state sponsored hacking operation which targets crypto projects, stealing assets which it then launders through crypto mixers and then funnels to the North Korean weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles programs.
The group has a long history of involvement in large hacks. It’s believed to have been responsible for the largest hack in crypto history—the March 2022 Ronin Network attack—in which US$625 million (AU$944 million) in assets were stolen.
Before using Sinbad the group had used other mixing services, such as Blender and Tornado Cash, both of which have previously been hit with sanctions by OFAC.
Sinbad May Just Be A Rebranded Blender
According to an article published in February 2023 by the crypto financial crime analytics firm, Elliptic, “Sinbad is in fact highly likely to be a rebrand of Blender, with the same individual or group responsible for it.”
Some of the evidence cited by Elliptic includes:
A wallet used to pay people who promoted Sinbad received payment from a wallet believed to be controlled by Blender.
Technical details about how both mixers work are apparently identical in several ways.
The post US Treasury Slaps Sinbad Mixer with Sanctions in Latest Crypto Crackdown appeared first on Crypto News Australia.
Filed under: Bitcoin - @ November 30, 2023 4:02 am