Hackers behind the July 2024 $230 million theft from Indian crypto exchange WazirX continues to move stolen funds, transferring 5,000 ether early Thursday to the privacy service Tornado Cash.
This latest transaction brings the total amount moved since Monday night to 15,000 ether, according to on-chain data tracked by Arkham. As of Thursday morning, the hacker’s wallet still holds over $50 million worth of tokens, primarily in ether.
Amid the fallout, WazirX founder Nischal Shetty has repeatedly shifted blame for the hack. Initially, Shetty claimed that a mistake by custodian Liminal led to the breach—a claim that Liminal denied. In August, Shetty shifted focus, suggesting that Binance, which he said held a majority of WazirX parent Zettai Labs’ funds, restricted WazirX’s ability to repay affected customers.
However, Binance firmly rejected these claims in a blog post earlier this week. “The WazirX team and Nischal Shetty continue to mislead WazirX customers and the market regarding the relationship between WazirX and Binance,” Binance stated, asserting that it “has not owned, controlled, or operated WazirX at any time, including before, during, or after the July 2024 attack.”
Binance further criticized Shetty’s deflection tactics: “Their attempts to shift responsibility is a disappointing deflection tactic, but it should not distract anyone from the glaring issue to be addressed here: the need for the WazirX team to be held accountable for user funds lost under their management.”
Tornado Cash is often used by criminals to obscure the digital trail of stolen funds, making it difficult to trace the origin and destination of assets across blockchain networks. The hackers exploited a vulnerability in WazirX’s multisig wallet in July, leading to the loss of over $100 million in shiba inu (SHIB) and $52 million in ether, among other assets.
These stolen assets account for more than 45% of the total reserves cited by WazirX in a June 2024 report. The exchange has since entered a restructuring process in Singapore to clear its liabilities.
