North Korea Turns DIY Meme Coins Into a Laundering Pipe for Stolen Binance Crypto, Elliptic Says
By Unchained
AI summary of the source article
North Korean crypto launderers created disposable meme coins on NEAR Protocol to route roughly $430,000 in funds stolen from Binance, according to Elliptic. The scheme uses decentralized exchange liquidity pools to break direct transfer links between wallets.
Why it matters
Elliptic stated that “the technique slows investigators down rather than hiding the funds,” and warned compliance teams not to treat funds coming out of a liquidity pool as clean by default.
Key facts
- From Nov. 5 to Nov. 7, roughly 117,000 NEAR ($430,000) stolen from Binance was laundered through six custom meme tokens.
- One group of wallets bought the meme coins via liquidity pools with stolen NEAR, while a separate group sold the tokens to withdraw NEAR.
- The FBI attributed the broader $6.3 billion Binance theft on Oct. 29 to North Korea's TraderTraitor hacking group.
Source excerpt · Unchained
Elliptic traced about 117,000 NEAR, roughly $430,000, through six tokens the launderers launched, a small slice of about $6.3 billion stolen from Binance. The post North Korea Turns DIY Meme Coins Into a Laundering Pipe for Stolen Binance Crypto, Elliptic Says appeared first on Unchained .