Lazarus Group Withdraws Bitcoin to Personal Wallet

The Lazarus group, a hacker group linked to North Korea and accused of multiple attacks over the past three years, has begun moving $1.2 million in Bitcoin obtained from illicit activities. This is one of the most notable transactions of this organization in the past month.

Transaction to transfer Bitcoin (BTC) to Lazarus Group wallet. Source: Arkham Intelligence

According to data from on-chain tracking platform Arkham Intelligence, a wallet identified as being owned by the Lazarus group recently received 27,371 Bitcoin (BTC) through two transactions from an anonymous money flow obscuring service.

Currently, Lazarus Group’s wallet holds a total value of 82.3 million USD, including 76.2 million USD worth of Bitcoin (BTC) and 3.5 million USD worth of Ethereum (ETH).

The amount of assets Lazarus Group is holding in their wallet. Source: Arkham Intelligence

The Lazarus group is widely believed to be responsible for numerous security incidents, including those involving CoinEx, Stake, Atomic Wallet, Harmony, and more. According to a cybersecurity report by Recorded Future, it is estimated that the group has amassed over 3 billion USD in the last three years.

Based on information compiled from TRM Labs, North Korean hackers account for about ⅓ of the attacks in 2023, with proceeds of about 600 million USD. The total amount of money that the North Korean hacker group “swordfished” in 2022 also reached more than 1 billion USD.

In the past, the US Treasury Department accused Lazarus Group of being behind the hack of Axie Infinity’s Ronin cross-chain solution, causing losses of up to 622 million USD.

Taylor Monahan, the developer of Metamask wallet, also discovered that the recent Orbit attack has a similar motif to previous incidents by Lazarus Group.