Suspected EU Crypto Theft Losses Surge Beyond $133 Million

On Tuesday, ZachXBT revealed he found an additional $27 million withdrawn from centralized exchanges, raising the total suspected loss from his Monday report of $106 million. Some of these withdrawals happened after his initial report went public.

In a statement on his Telegram channel, ZachXBT explained, “My current hypothesis is that a significant financial institution in Western Europe was compromised and efforts are underway to conceal this incident.”

He further expressed that the insufficient disclosure around this event allowed over $30 million to be laundered, suggesting that EU law enforcement agencies might have frozen these assets had they been properly informed. The identity of the victim and any potential cover-up claims have yet to be confirmed.

Data from Bitquery indicated that approximately $62.98 million in stablecoins was transformed into 27,553 Ether (ETH) within a span of about four hours. By 13:47 UTC on Monday, around $78.3 million still remained in wallets linked to the suspected perpetrator, while $30.5 million had been transferred out from known addresses.

According to Bitquery, only $3.74 million in USDC tokens is left, which the issuer, Circle, could possibly freeze.

Earlier, ZachXBT noted that the attacker had been converting stolen funds into ETH and Monero (XMR) using instant swap platforms and cross-chain bridges. He added that these laundering methods differ from those typically associated with the North Korean Lazarus Group.

This case underscores the critical need for timely incident disclosure in the cryptocurrency sector to enable law enforcement to swiftly act and prevent extensive financial losses.