Elliptic Finds Connection with Russia of Laundering of Assets Stolen from FTX

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Elliptic experts have concluded that a Russian-linked broker or intermediary was likely involved in laundering some of the funds stolen from FTX in November 2022, as determined through their investigation.

It is highly probable that part of the funds stolen from FTX in November 2022 were laundered through a Russian-linked broker or intermediary.

This finding was reached by experts at Elliptic. The unauthorized withdrawal of funds began on the same day that the exchange declared bankruptcy.

In a matter of hours, the hacker managed to withdraw $477 million in various cryptocurrencies from the exchange’s wallets.

The stolen assets consisted mainly of $434 million worth of stablecoins and other tokens, which could potentially be frozen by their issuers upon request.

Some of the funds were indeed frozen, including $31.5 million in USDT.

To circumvent further blocking of funds, the hacker began converting the stolen crypto into Ethereum and transferring it to decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap and PancakeSwap.