Poloniex Hacker Sends $3.3M Worth of Ether to Tornado Cash

A hacker that stole $125 million from Poloniex’s hot wallets in November has sent 1,100 ether (ETH) to sanctioned coin mixer Tornado Cash, according to blockchain data.

The ether, worth roughly $3.3 million, was sent to Tornado Cash in 100 ETH batches on Tuesday, having been dormant for 178 days.

The Poloniex hacker also sent 501 bitcoin (BTC) worth $32 million to an unlabelled wallet on April 30. It still holds a total of $181 million worth of crypto across various blockchains, Arkham data shows.

Tornado Cash is a protocol that allows users to obfuscate crypto tokens by mixing assets across multiple wallets over a prolonged period of time. It was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2022 shortly after it was used by North Korean hacking group Lazarus, which attempted to hide funds secured from the $625 million Axie Infinity exploit.

Blockchain security firm Elliptic said in March that Lazarus Group used Tornado Cash to launder $12 million from the Heco Bridge hack, which occurred shortly after the Poloniex Hack.