The USA Treasury Division has added greater than 40 cryptocurrency addresses allegedly related to controversial mixer Twister Money to the Specifically Designated Nationals listing of the Workplace of Overseas Asset Management, or OFAC.
In a Monday announcement, OFAC successfully barred U.S. residents from utilizing Twister Money and positioned 44 USD Coin (USDC) and Ether (ETH) addresses related to the mixer on its listing of Specifically Designated Nationals. The division alleged that people and teams had used the mixer to launder greater than $7 billion value of crypto since 2019, together with the $455 million stolen by the North Korea-affiliated Lazarus Group. The protocol was additionally on the middle of some current hacks and exploits in decentralized finance, together with a $375-million assault on Wormhole in February and a $100-million hack on Horizon Bridge in June.
“Regardless of public assurances in any other case, Twister Money has repeatedly didn’t impose efficient controls designed to cease it from laundering funds for malicious cyber actors frequently and with out primary measures to handle its dangers,” stated Brian Nelson, Beneath Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Monetary Intelligence. “Treasury will proceed to aggressively pursue actions in opposition to mixers that launder digital forex for criminals and those that help them.”
Immediately, Treasury sanctioned digital forex mixer Twister Money, which has been used to launder greater than $7 billion value of digital forex since its creation in 2019. Digital forex mixers that help criminals are a menace to U.S. nationwide safety. https://t.co/x8sCXsNzUv
— Treasury Division (@USTreasury) August 8, 2022
In a tweet on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken falsely claimed Twister Money was a “U.S.-sanctioned, DPRK state-sponsored hacking group, utilized by the DPRK to launder cash.” He later deleted the publish and tweeted the crypto mixer “has been used to launder cash for a U.S.-sanctioned DPRK state-sponsored cyber hacking group.”
We’ll proceed to aggressively pursue actions in opposition to forex mixers laundering digital forex for criminals. Immediately, @USTreasury sanctioned digital forex mixer Twister Money, which has been used to launder cash for a U.S.-sanctioned DPRK state-sponsored cyber hacking group.
— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) August 8, 2022
The Treasury Division took comparable steps in opposition to cryptocurrency mixer Blender.io in Might. In line with OFAC, the mixer allegedly processed $20.5 million out of roughly $620 million stolen from the play-to-earn recreation Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge — roughly 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC. Beneath OFAC sanctions, corporations and people have their property blocked and “U.S. individuals are usually prohibited from coping with them.”
Associated: US Treasury Dept sanctions 3 Ethereum addresses allegedly linked to North Korea
Twister Money introduced in July that it had absolutely open-sourced its person interface code as a part of its targets towards full decentralization and transparency. The mixer’s web site included a compliance instrument that allowed customers to point out the supply of any transaction.
