Lazarus Group Turns to YoMix for Crypto Money Laundering

According to a recent Chainalysis report, the infamous Lazarus Group has moved its crypto laundering methods to YoMix after the crackdown on the Sinbad mixer. This modification emphasizes the group’s strength on innovations and its capacity to adapt to rising regulatory pressures and law enforcement actions against crypto-oriented money laundering instruments.

Lazarus Group Move to YoMix

The crypto money-laundering topology underwent a massive change in 2023. When the popular Sinbad mixer was put down by regulatory bodies, cybercrime groups, such as the infamous Lazarus Group, had no choice but to use other channels for the illicit fund flows. YoMix, a Bitcoin-based mixer, is the heir, having seen a spike in use by these indeed sophisticated players.

Volume of the Crypto Money Laundering Decrease

The thorough investigation carried out by Chainalysis in respect to the crypto laundering system specifically pointed to a significant diminishing of the total amount of dirty funds transferred through the crypto area.

However, in 2023, illicit addresses sent $22.2 billion of cryptocurrency to various services which was significantly down from $31.5 billion in 2022. This decrease coincides with a general fall in transactional volumes of crypto, pointing to a potential squeeze on the world of crypto-enabled crime.

Nevertheless, methods and services used by crypto criminals for laundering the proceeds seem to have changed, despite the general decrease. Even though decentralized exchanges are not the major targets where illicit funds are usually deposited, their use by FiDefi protocols and other intermediary service providers is getting increasingly popular. 

This transition, in part, is connected with the nature of DeFi protocols which by virtue of being transparent allows the tracking but also gives new ways of obfuscating.

Rising Demand of Cross-Chain Bridges

An important trend of 2023 was the growing dependence of crypto criminals primarily in cases of stolen funds on multi-chain bridges. Bridges that enable the transfer of assets from one blockchain to another have become the preferred tool for money laundering, with the value received from illicit addresses more than doubling in terms of usage.

The Chainalysis report also brings to the fore the changing such strategies of crypto villains to hide their actions. With diversifying their activities over more services and deposit addresses, these actors are trying to minimize the likelihood of detection and the effect of possible regulatory actions. 

This distribution of activities creates new challenges on the law enforcement and compliance sides, which necessitates a more sophisticated approach to the interconnection of crypto transactions.

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