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Greek authorities have followed a share of $1.5 billion stolen from crypto exchange Bybit in February to the customer of a local crypto platform, furthering the international investigation into what still stands as the largest digital asset heist on record.
The hack, said to have been planned by North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group, caused shock throughout the international crypto sphere, sparking new concerns about digital asset security and cross-border laundering techniques.
Greece’s President of Anti-Money Laundering Authority, Charalambos Vourliotis, verified in a press conference that in May, a transaction had been reported after a registered Greek exchange user received a ‘large amount’ of Ethereum.
After an internal investigation, officials connected the activity on the wallet to stolen funds in the Bybit hack. An official seizure order has been made against the wallet, and the case has been forwarded to the nation’s Prosecutor’s Office, Greek media outlet Proto Thema reported.
The exchange utilized hasn’t been identified publicly but is presumed to be a local platform. Popular international players such as Coinbase, Kraken, and Gemini also have offices in Greece, but are not presumed to be implicated.
The exploit in February saw the hackers withdraw more than $1.4 billion of ETH and stETH from Bybit’s hot wallets. CEO Ben Zhou subsequently corroborated on X (previously Twitter) that an ordinary transfer was hacked, with the attackers able to drain funds.
Although the scale of the heist, Bybit remained operational thanks to emergency loans from Galaxy Digital, Wintermute, and FalconX. The exchange has currently recovered $42.89 million and reports that approximately 88.87% of the stolen funds are still traceable on-chain.
Researchers estimate that between 7.59% of the stolen assets have ‘gone dark,’ but were channeled through privacy mixers such as Tornado Cash, Wasabi, and CryptoMixer, tools most commonly used to conceal the origin of illegal transactions. A further 3.54% of stolen assets have been seized via collaboration with international exchanges.
The rapid and advanced washing of money has caused analysts to believe that the use of large crypto-cleaning infrastructure in places such as China is involved, which has probably served as a money laundering hub.
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In the wake of the wallet confiscation, Greek regulators are said to be escalating surveillance of the overall crypto space. According to Proto Thema, financial regulators in the country now have crypto transactions squarely in their sights, with further crackdowns on the horizon.
The move represents a turning point for the regulation of the crypto sector in the region, underscoring how global cybercrime is compelling regulators at home to intensify surveillance and enforcement in the decentralized finance sector.
