Money Laundering Activity Spread Across More Service Deposit Addresses in 2023, Plus New Tactics from Lazarus Group
Contents
The goal of money laundering is to obscure the criminal origins of funds so that they can be accessed and spent. In the context of cryptocurrency-based crime, that generally means moving funds to services where they can be converted into cash, while often taking extra steps to conceal where the funds came from. Our on-chain analysis of crypto money laundering therefore focuses on two distinct groups of services and on-chain entities:
- Intermediary services and wallets. This category includes personal wallets, mixers, instant exchangers, various types of DeFi protocols, and other services both legitimate and illicit. Crypto criminals generally use services in this category to hold funds, or to obfuscate their criminal origins, often by obscuring the on-chain link between their source address and their current address.
- Fiat off-ramping services. This category includes any service where cryptocurrency can be converted into fiat currency, the most common being centralized exchanges. However, it …
- Intermediary services and wallets. This category includes personal wallets, mixers, instant exchangers, various types of DeFi protocols, and other services both legitimate and illicit. Crypto criminals generally use services in this category to hold funds, or to obfuscate their criminal origins, often by obscuring the on-chain link between their source address and their current address.
- Fiat off-ramping services. This category includes any service where cryptocurrency can be converted into fiat currency, the most common being centralized exchanges. However, it …