The hackers responsible for the massive breach of Indian cryptocurrency exchange WazirX in July are reportedly close to laundering the stolen funds, estimated to be worth over ₹2,000 crore. Once all the funds are laundered the chances of recovering funds back will reduce greatly.
The hackers have continuously transferred the stolen funds in batches to a new address and then to the well known crypto mixer tornado cash. At present wallet holding funds stolen from WazirX, is down to only $6 million worth of ether (ETH).
Blockchain data from Arkham, show a clear timeline of how hackers transferred over 400 crore (approx $50 million) worth of tokens in August and the remaining amount in September.
The stolen funds accounted for over 45% of the total reserves cited by the exchange in a June 2024 report. The exchange has since filed for a restructuring process in Singapore to clear its liabilities.
Amidst this, Binance, which has had a contentious relationship with WazirX, asserts that it should not be involved in this case emphasizing that it does not control or operate WazirX. Binance even responded to a user claiming 83 cr from them with “Not Our Circus, Not Our Monkeys”
That differs from what founder Nischal Shetty stated on X in August. Who will pay wazirx users is still a 2000 cr question.
Also Read: How Hackers Use Malicious Smart Contracts to Steal Crypto: Insights from WazirX Hack