A Chinese trader helped the North Korea-linked hacker Lazarus Group launder millions of dollars’ worth of stolen cryptocurrencies.
Blockchain investigator ZachXBT revealed in a post on X on Oct. 23 that Yicong Wang, a Chinese over-the-counter trader who operated under various aliases, assisted Lazarus Group in converting millions in stolen crypto into cash.
According to ZachXBT, blockchain data shows that since 2022, Wang has helped launder crypto through bank transfers. His OTC aliases include ‘Seawang’, ‘Greatdtrader’, and ‘BestRhea977’.
OTC trader worked with hacker group
ZachXBT’s investigation into Wang’s activities began only recently after a trader approached ZachXBT with information that his account had been frozen following a peer-to-peer transaction with Wang.
A Tron (TRX) wallet belonging to the suspect helped link Wang to a series of transactions involving illicit funds connected to the $4.5 million hack of Alex Labs. On-chain data also showed that the trader’s wallet address had ties to funds transfers related to several other hacks, including those involving Irys co-founder, EasyFi, Bondly, and Maverick.
Lazarus Group was behind the $4.3 million Alex Labs hack in May 2024 and the $1.3 million Irys co-founder $1.3 million hack in July 2024. Funds transferred to deposit addresses linked to the hackers ended up in Wang’s addresses. Wang helped commingle and bridge funds to Tron addresses in transactions that took place on August 13, 2024.
ZachXBT also reported that Tether blacklisted an Ethereum address holding 948,000 Ether (ETH) tied to Wang in August 2024.
“While Yicong Wang has been banned from Paxful and Noones on multiple accounts (Seawang/Greatdtrader/BestRhea977) for laundering funds he has since moved to conducting business offsite. It’s apparent from on-chain he has still been actively helping Lazarus Group within the past couple weeks,” ZachXBT said.
