Coincheck Hackers Trying to Move Stolen XEM

After the biggest crypto theft in the history of the industry, the hackers had already started moving the funds onto six exchanges where they would be sold, according to Reuters.

NEM Foundation had traced the stolen XEM tokens to an unidentified account, the news outlet reports. Lon Wong, President of the NEM Foundation, said on Friday exclusively for Cryptonews.com that it was one account that stole the tokens, and that they would do what they can to track them down.

The NEM development team refused to conduct a hard fork, instead creating an automated tagging system to ensure that all funds stolen from the crypto exchange Coincheck are traced by tagging them as “tainted” funds, explained Alex, Global Communications Director for NEM.

Jeff McDonald, Vice President of the foundation, said for Reuters that they were contacting the exchanges the tokens were moved to. He said he assumes they will get away with at least “some of the money”, adding that the hackers were unlikely to try to spend all of the stolen cryptocurrency at once, because the “market simply couldn’t absorb that much.”

Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a cryptocurrency security firm based in London, said that moving stolen goods in smaller batches so the anti-money laundering mechanisms would not be activated is becoming the go-to way of covering tracks for cybercriminals.

But with the tagging system in place, not many ways for escaping the watchful eye of NEM seem to be presenting themselves to the thieves.

In either case, Coincheck has confirmed its intention to refund the stolen money to the affected 260,000 users, as reported by Cryptonews.com.