$230 Million from WazirX Hack almost Completely Laundered by Hacker.
The hacker responsible for the $230 million theft from WazirX in July has almost finished laundering the stolen funds, with only about $6 million in Ethereum (ETH) remaining, according to on-chain data from Arkham Intelligence.
Most of the stolen assets were funneled through Tornado Cash, a platform infamous for anonymizing digital transactions. The hack involved a significant portion of WazirX’s reserves, including over $100 million in Shiba Inu (SHIB) and $52 million in Ethereum taken from a compromised wallet. Since August, the hacker has moved over $50 million through Tornado Cash, with a recent transfer of 3,792 ETH (around $10 million).
Tornado Cash has become a go-to tool for criminals looking to launder crypto due to its ability to mask wallet addresses, though it has attracted regulatory attention for its role in criminal schemes. Earlier this year, one of its developers, Alexey Pertsev, was sentenced to over five years in prison in the Netherlands for money laundering.
After the hack, WazirX began a restructuring process in Singapore to address its financial challenges. However, the exchange has faced criticism for its handling of the crisis and its lack of transparency with users. Adding to the confusion, Binance, once linked to WazirX, distanced itself from the hack, denying any involvement in managing the exchange’s operations. This contradicted statements made by WazirX co-founder Nischal Shetty.
As the hacker approaches the end of laundering the majority of the funds, questions remain about WazirX’s recovery efforts and the overall security of crypto exchanges.
