The Treasury Department said North Korean cybercriminals used Sinbad to launder hundreds of millions of dollars stolen in some of the biggest cryptocurrency hacks, including Ronin Bridge and Atomic Wallet.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against Sinbad, a cryptocurrency mixing service known to be used by bad actors such as North Korea’s Lazarus Group to launder digital assets.
According to a November 29 statement, Sinbad’s platform has racked up hundreds of millions of looted cryptocurrencies in some of the biggest cryptocurrency exploits, including the $600 million Axie Infinity Ronin Bridge hack, the $100 billion breach of Atomic Wallet, and the $100 million loss of Harmony Horizon. It was used to bring in dollars.
Due to OFAC sanctions, Sinbad’s website was taken down by a joint operation by the FBI, the Netherlands Financial Intelligence Service, and the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation.
Hybrid services that allow criminal actors like the Lazarus Group to launder stolen assets face serious consequences.
Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Minister of Finance;
The restrictions on Sinbad follow enforcement actions for other crypto mixers such as Blender.io on May 6, 2022, and Tornado Cash on November 8, 2022. The Tornado Cash case extended to developers Alexey Pertsev, Roman Semenov, and Roman Storm. All three co-founders face lawsuits in U.S. and Dutch jurisdictions.
Treasury departments such as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network have also been scrutinizing cryptocurrency mixers, labeling them a “national security threat” and calling for stricter rules for monitoring these platforms.
It limits the United States’ broader regulatory actions against what the watchdog calls non-compliant cryptocurrency actors with lax procedures in place to prevent misuse of the technology.