ZachXBT Updates Alleged European Crypto Heist Figure to $133M
Blockchain sleuth ZachXBT has discovered an additional $27 million in platform withdrawals, with some transactions taking place following his initial report about the suspected cryptocurrency theft.
The on-chain investigator known as ZachXBT has updated his assessment of a suspected cryptocurrency heist targeting an unnamed European Union organization, now placing the total at over $133 million.
In a Tuesday update, ZachXBT revealed he had traced an additional $27 million in withdrawals from centralized cryptocurrency exchanges, bringing the total suspected theft upward from the $106 million figure he had originally announced on Monday. According to him, certain withdrawals took place even after he made his initial public disclosure.
My working theory is a large financial institution in Western Europe was exploited and it's currently being covered up
ZachXBT said Tuesday on his Telegram channel
He further noted that the absence of a transparent incident disclosure enabled the laundering of over $30 million, asserting that EU law enforcement authorities could have otherwise secured the assets through freezing measures. The actual identity of the victim and the accusations regarding a potential cover-up have yet to be confirmed.
Analytics platform Bitquery documented that $62.98 million worth of stablecoins underwent conversion into 27,553 Ether (ETH) in the span of approximately four hours. As recorded at 13:47 UTC on Monday, around $78.3 million continued to be held in wallet addresses associated with the suspected threat actor, whereas $30.5 million had already been transferred away from the monitored addresses.
According to Bitquery's analysis, just $3.74 million stayed in USDC format that the issuing company Circle might have the capability to freeze.
In his earlier statements, ZachXBT indicated that the perpetrator was exchanging the stolen assets into ETH and Monero (XMR) by utilizing instant exchange services and cross-chain bridge protocols. He also noted that the money laundering methodologies observed did not align with the characteristic patterns associated with the Lazarus Group from North Korea.