PANews reported on November 21 that according to Yonhap News Agency, the South Korean police officially confirmed for the first time that the 342,000 Ethereums (worth 58 billion won at the time and now worth about 1.47 trillion won) stolen from the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit in 2019 were stolen by a North Korean hacker group.
The police pointed out that the hacker groups "Lazarus" and "Andariel" under the Reconnaissance General Bureau of North Korea were involved in the attack. This conclusion was based on data from North Korean IP addresses, the flow of encrypted assets, traces of North Korean vocabulary use, and cooperation with the US FBI.
57% of the stolen Ethereum was converted into Bitcoin at a price 2.5% lower than the market price through three suspected money laundering platforms opened by North Korea, and the remaining assets were dispersed and laundered through 51 overseas exchanges. In 2020, the police discovered that some of the stolen Bitcoins were stored in a Swiss exchange. After four years of efforts, they successfully recovered 4.8 Bitcoins (about 600 million won) in October this year and returned them to Upbit.
