U.S. Treasury Sanctions Crypto Mixer on North Korea Allegations as FBI, Dutch and Finnish Police Seize Website

We saw a announce sanctions against this mixer alleging that it had been used to move funds uh stolen by North Korea's infamous Lazarus group, the hacking entity that, you know, has been tied to things like I infinity horizon and the Atomic Wallet hack. Um according to a uh you know, funds were moved through Sinbad IO. And um you know, basically that was enough, you know, we've seen this before with tornado cash and other crypto mixers. Us government is still uh not wild about North Korean government laundering funds using crypto mixers. Uh You know, there's a gene analysis report saying that or from last year saying that this was a mixer that first off private Bitcoin services. Uh Some of the other ones we've seen sanctioned are more focused on, you know, Ethereum and Ethereum tokens. Uh This one does support Bitcoin and it appears to have launched or at least gone public around October of 2022. So just over a year ago now, uh in that time, uh you know, we've seen according to other analytics companies, uh millions of dollars worth of funds moved through to make sure the wallets that were sanctioned had about half a million overall. Uh from what we saw on Tuesday, Deputy Treasury Secretary, Wally Amo actually gave a speech about this to the Washington Association earlier this week as well. Uh Basically saying that, you know, when it comes to concerns about national security and things like that, uh And, you know, obviously North Korea is pretty high on that list. Um They are continuing to, you know, crack down on this. And in his speech and in a letter that the Treasury Department sent to lawmakers again earlier this week, um we saw uh you know, various um you know, members uh or sorry, Treasury Department say that, you know, they're looking for, you know, additional authorities on, you know, when it comes to sanctions specifically to be able to better crack down on, you know, what they see as this, you know, growing certainly, you know, some unmitigated threat about how a uh you know, not just North Korea but also terrorist organizations and the like might be using these mixing services. Of course, that's a controversial, you know, proposal within the crypto community. And we've already seen some lawmakers come out, you know, a bit opposed to this. But, you know, if we're looking at it as a, you know, this is a concern that Treasury has, then, you know, I think it makes sense where you're coming from. What's next, of course, is, you know, probably see them using their existing authorities to go after whatever other mixers you might say.