CertiK detects $63 million in deposits from Tornado Cash in a wallet breach worth $282 million

Approximately $63 million USD in deposits into Tornado Cash have been identified as related to the cryptocurrency wallet breach worth $282 million USD that occurred on 1/10. Blockchain security firm CertiK stated that their monitoring system detected transactions with Tornado Cash related to the incident, indicating that money laundering was happening very quickly and sophisticatedly.

According to analysis, at least 686 BTC stolen have been transferred to Ethereum, converted into about 19,600 ETH, then split into multiple wallets before being sent to Tornado Cash – a privacy-focused mixing protocol. This flow of funds only reflects a part of the total loss but shows the attacker’s effort to hide traces.

Marwan Hachem, CEO of FearsOff, commented that this is a “classic” money laundering scenario for cross-chain thefts, making recovery after entering the mixer “almost impossible.”

The attack originated from a social engineering scam, where the victim’s seed phrase was leaked, resulting in the loss of over 1,459 BTC and more than 2 million LTC.