{"id":409,"date":"2022-04-16T14:55:13","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T14:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=409"},"modified":"2022-04-16T14:55:13","modified_gmt":"2022-04-16T14:55:13","slug":"us-treasury-issues-first-ever-sanctions-against-a-cryptocurrency-mixer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/?p=409","title":{"rendered":"US Treasury issues first-ever sanctions against a cryptocurrency mixer"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'><\/div><p>issued its first sanctions against a Bitcoin mixer, Blender.io, for allegedly and &#8220;indiscriminately&#8221; helping North Korea launder over $20.5 million in crypto from the $620 million on Lazarus Group, an outfit frequently linked to the North Korean government&#8217;s cybercrime and cyberwarfare efforts. North Korea has been repeatedly accused of hacking banks and cryptocurrency holders to evade international sanctions and finance its weapons programs.<\/p>\n<p>The Treasury&#8217;s Office of Foreign Assets Control also used the opportunity to identify four digital wallets Lazarus reportedly used to launder the rest of the <em>Axie Infinity<\/em> crypto. The perpetrators relied on one &#8220;getaway&#8221; wallet for the crime itself.<\/p>\n<p>The agency stressed that most cryptocurrency activity was legal, and that it was only targeting mixers that aid criminals. However, there&#8217;s a not-so-subtle warning here: the US is willing to sanction crypto service providers if they tolerate state-backed hackers, not just the nations directing those hacks.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>issued its first sanctions against a Bitcoin mixer, Blender.io, for allegedly and &#8220;indiscriminately&#8221; helping North Korea launder over $20.5 million in crypto from the $620 million on Lazarus Group, an outfit frequently linked to the North Korean government&#8217;s cybercrime and cyberwarfare efforts. North Korea has been repeatedly accused of hacking banks and cryptocurrency holders to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[569,576,573,574,575,65,566,567,577,64,568,571,572,570,565],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/engadget.vip\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}