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According to the experts, cyber attackers from North Korea launder stolen money through the Chinese crypto exchange MEXC
What is Gate.io?
Gate.io is one of the top ten crypto exchanges in the world that was established in 2013 by Chinese developer Lin Han.
The platform provides trading services and was considered as a safe exchange with more than 6 million users.
Involvement in Money Laundering
The public data says that a sum of $1,600 to be exact, was converted into Ethereum (ETH) first, then converted into Tether (USDT), and sent to MEXC addresses by criminals.
Previously, the platform was involved in an exchange hack in 2018, which was officially confirmed. However, the company made a decision not to disclose more than $230 million loss. The investigator who goes under a nickname @zachxbt was suspicious about the platform and refused to believe in the legitimacy of the Gate.io.
According to the cyber security platform PeckShield, the attack was carried out by criminals from North Korea.
Straight Facts
Gate.io has already shown signs of suspicious activity. A year ago, in October 2022,
it was attacked with phishing through the exchange’s Twitter account. The platform managed to regain access to the account almost immediately, but pretended that there was no hack at all, which would be a strange move for any trustworthy and legal company.
Moreover, it was found out by the analytical Twitter account @lookonchain that the assets of the Gate.io hold even further details. According to the data, more than 60% of the total savings consisted of “meme” and dubious tokens such as SHIB and GT. Meanwhile, the popular stablecoin tether (USDT) and cryptocurrency ether (ETH) accounted for only 21% of all the exchange’s assets.
Early in January 2023, reports surfaced that the exchange intended to reduce its workforce by approximately half. The management of Gate.io did not contest the statistics but asserted that the layoffs are part of the company’s “regular optimization.” The precise number of professionals who were affected by the layoffs remains unknown. Regarding the layoffs at the company, Gate.io made no public statements till this day.