Binance Team Foils Money Laundering Attempt on Rival Exchange Huobi

• Binance helped Huobi Global freeze 124 Bitcoin from a Bridge exploit.
• The chief advisor of Huobi appreciated Binance’s collaborative effort.
• Harmony blockchain offered a $1 million bounty for the return of over $100 million.

The largest crypto exchange, Binance, assisted a rival Chinese business, Huobi Global, in recovering 124 Bitcoin (BTC) worth $2.58 million from a bridge exploit last year.

The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), tweeted about the recovery, noting that the Harmony Bridge hacker had previously attempted to launder the proceeds from their exploit via Binance, but it was unsuccessful. The hacker then resolved to use the Huobi exchange, and the Binance team assisted in freezing the hacker’s account.

Justin Sun, the chief advisor of Huobi, also tweeted, appreciating the Binance team’s collaborative effort in recovering the hacked funds. Sun stated that:

This is a prime example of how centralized exchanges (CeFi) can work together to keep the crypto community #SAFU. We will continue to be vigilant in protecting our users’ funds and promoting a safe and secure trading environment.

An on-chain detective, ZachXBT, stated that North Korea’s Lazarus Group transferred 41,000 Ethereum (ETH) worth $64 million from the Harmony ONE Bridge breach over the weekend. ZachXBT’s chart shows 100 ETH transfers from OFAC-sanctioned Tornado Cash to Railgun, a privacy platform.

Furthermore, ZachXBT noted that the hackers later consolidated the funds and placed them on three unnamed exchanges. The movements were first noticed by the crypto compliance platform MistTrack on January 14, tweeting that an address associated with the Harmony Bridge exploit was on the move.

Following a $100 million Harmony Bridge hack on June 24, 2022, the layer-1 blockchain offered a $1 million bounty for the return of the funds.