Kelp DAO bridge hacker has laundered almost all of $220 million; about $1.7 million still in wallet

ChainCatcher, citing The Defiant, reports that a hacker has laundered nearly all of the $220 million in unfrozen funds stolen in the Kelp DAO cross-chain bridge attack. Tracking by on-chain analyst Arkham Intelligence indicates roughly $1.7 million remains in the original attacker wallet. The attacker is believed to have ties to North Korea and is also linked to a $292 million LayerZero cross-chain bridge attack in April. Investigators say the funds were routed through privacy-focused tools including THORChain, Wasabi, Tornado Cash and Umbra. So far, the only portion considered recoverable is about $71 million in Ethereum that the Arbitrum Security Council froze on April 20. LayerZero's May 18 report attributed the incident to the North Korean group TraderTraitor. Kelp said it has recovered around 116,000 rsETH via a migration to Chainlink CCIP and the DeFi United initiative. Aave's safety module absorbed about $190 million in bad debt.