On January 19, an Ethereum address linked to the Raydium AMM protocol exploit laundered 1,774.5 ETH (about $2.7 million) through the Tornado Cash mixer. CertiK drew attention to this.
We are seeing ~1,774.5 ETH (~$2.7M) being deposited into @TornadoCash from the Raydium exploiter 0xb98ac as labeled on https://t.co/lb2v6r8c4s.
Stay vigilant! pic.twitter.com/JVqWAw9MVO
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) January 19, 2023
The funds were stolen in December 2022 through a breach of administrator account keys that secure Raydium’s smart contracts. The loss from the hack stood at $4.4 million.
In August, OFAC imposed sanctions on the Tornado Cash mixer. The agency accused the platform of laundering about $7 billion since 2017. More than $455 million of those were linked to North Korean hackers.
In the same month in the Netherlands the mixer developer was arrested Aleksei Pertsev. His detention was extended until February 20, 2023.
Within a month of the sanctions, Tornado Cash liquidity pools fell by about 60%, reducing its potential to anonymize large-scale money-laundering schemes. Nevertheless DeFi protocol hackers continue to actively use the mixer.
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