Norwegian Authority Returns $5.7M in Stolen Assets from Ronin Bridge Hack
The Norwegian Authority has successfully frozen and returned $5.7 million in stolen assets from the Ronin Bridge $620 million hack in 2022 to Sky Mavis, the company behind the popular play-to-earn (P2E) game Axie Infinity.
Sky Mavis, sharing the exciting news, revealed in an X post on Friday that the assets were frozen by the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) in collaboration with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the blockchain forensic company Chainalysis.
The company publicly expressed their sincere gratitude to all those who helped with the recovery, particularly Þkokrim and the FBI in the US, for their tireless efforts in locating and retrieving these assets for the communities of Axie and Ronin.
The Singapore-based blockchain gaming firm further stated that approximately 15% of the recovered assets will be used to cover costs and expenses for law enforcement organizations, attorneys, accountants, and blockchain forensic teams like Chainalysis, who worked closely together and put in a lot of effort in the recovery of these assets. After this is done, the Axie Infinity Treasury will hold the remaining 85% of the recovered funds.
“We also want to use this opportunity to remind the community that the law enforcement agencies have frozen approximately 40 million dollars' worth of separate assets. We don't have enough information to provide guidance regarding a precise timeline for the recovery and return of this separate pool of assets, so it will take some time for these assets to recover,” Sky Mavis added.
In 2022, a notorious gang of North Korean hackers known as the Lazarus Group was linked to the $620 million video game Axie Infinity crypto heist, where the hackers infiltrated part of the underlying blockchain that powers the game called Ronin. Developers at Sky Mavis said they discovered the breach in late March. According to reports, the hackers pulled off the $620 million crypto heist by tricking an engineer into applying for a fake job and opening an offer letter containing spyware.
The United States Treasury Department first noted that the hack was linked to the Lazarus Group when it updated its sanctions listing for the group to add a cryptocurrency address used in the hack. This was further confirmed by blockchain data firm Chainalysis, which found that the North Korean cybercriminal group was behind the March hack.
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