Hackers steal $20 million in cryptocurrencies from the US Government
Suspicious movement on the blockchain indicates that approximately US$20 million in cryptocurrencies were withdrawn from wallets controlled by the United States government, according to information from the analysis company Arkham Intelligence.
As the company reported, the abnormal activity began around 2 pm on Thursday (New York time). At that moment, someone withdrew funds that had been inactive for more than eight months from the Aave decentralized lending platform.
According to Arkham, the diverted funds are related to the well-known hack of the Bitfinex exchange. In a publication on the X platform (formerly Twitter), the company highlighted that the address 0xc9E received funds seized by the US government, linked to the hackers in the Bitfinex case, coming from nine different seizure addresses.
Among them is the address 0xE2F699AB099e97Db1CF0b13993c31C7ee42FB2ac, cited in court documents relating to the seizure of the Bitfinex case.
US governments suffer attack and lose cryptocurrencies
The assets in question include around $14 million worth of AUSDC, a stablecoin, $5.4 million worth of USDC, $1.1 million worth of USDT, and almost $500,000 worth of ETH. So far, the perpetrator of the robbery has not yet been identified. Furthermore, it remains unclear how government wallets, which contain more than $14 billion in different cryptocurrencies, were targeted in the attack. However, the behavior of the suspicious account suggests that the operation is malicious in origin.
Shortly after the movement of funds, the address began transferring cryptocurrencies to several non-custodial applications, appearing to be an attempt to launder the assets, Arkham reported.
“We believe that the attacker has already started laundering funds through suspicious addresses, linked to a money laundering service,” reported the company.
Crypto detective ZachXBT corroborated the opinion, reinforcing that it is unlikely that the AU government carried out these transactions. Furthermore, he pointed out that “the US government would not use services like Switchain or N.Exchange.”
The suspicious wallet still holds approximately $13 million in cryptocurrencies. Part of the assets went to other addresses, with addresses starting at 0x15D0a and 0xBf6F7 holding around US$5.5 million and US$1.4 million in ETH, respectively.
Hackers in the crypto sector
Hackers and security breaches are not new to the cryptocurrency sector. It is estimated that since 2011, around US$81 billion worth of tokens have been lost in various types of attacks. Among these incidents, the Bitfinex hack stands out, although the original amount of around US$65 million stolen in 2016 represents a relatively small loss compared to other cases.
However, following the seizure of assets held by married couple Heather “Razzlekham” Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein, the value of cryptocurrencies rose to more than $4 billion, making it the largest seizure on record.
It is not yet clear what the final destination of Bitfinex's funds will be. The expectation is that the US government will return the assets to the exchange. However, new information about the case remains in dispute.
If it is confirmed that there was, in fact, a compromise in the positions of the US Marshals Service, this will be another controversial episode in a story that has been going on since 2016.