Poloniex Hacker Transfers $53.5 Million Worth of ETH Through Tornado Cash

The movement of stolen cryptocurrency from the Poloniex hack in November 2023 is far from over. Although Poloniex claimed to have identified the attacker weeks later and offered a $10 million reward, the stolen funds were never returned.

In the latest development, PeckShield, a blockchain investigation company, found that more than half of the stolen funds were moved through Tornado Cash.

More than six months after the hack, the bad actor moved 17.8K ETH – worth approximately $53.5 million from six different wallets – to a single address of the controversial coin mixer, Tornado Cash.

#PeckShieldAlert The #Poloniex hacker has already sent a total of 17.8K $ETH (worth ~$53.5million) to #TornadoCash pic.twitter.com/gpkIYVA2fZ

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) May 14, 2024

The latest transfer of funds comes a week after the hacker moved more than 1,100 ETH in 11 batches of 100 ETH to the sanctioned crypto mixer over a period of two hours.

Poloniex was hacked in November 2023 after its private keys were compromised by malicious actors.

The attackers, suspected to be the notorious Lazarus Group associated with the North Korean government, stole around $126 million from the exchange’s hot wallets.

Later, Poloniex stated that its team identified and froze a portion of the assets linked to the hacker’s addresses to prevent additional losses. They also mentioned that the losses are within “manageable limits” and that their operating revenue can cover them.

TRON founder Justin Sun, who bought Poloniex in 2019, vowed to completely compensate the affected users of the exchange while asserting that it is financially stable and is seeking partnerships with other exchanges to recover the lost funds.