Some of the funds stolen from Coincheck Inc. in the $500 million heist have been traced to a cryptocurrency exchange in Canada, according researcher BIG Blockchain Intelligence Group Inc. (BIG), Bloomberg reports.
BIG used a combination of public ledger information available to anyone and proprietary knowhow to trace the coins.
It said some of the stolen NEM coins are being transferred to a Vancouver-based exchange, where they are being converted to other cryptocurrencies and then possibly sent back to Japan, according to Shone Anstey, president and co-founder of BIG.
“We felt it was a significant amount that warranted looking into,” Anstey said.
“They are trying to move it before the door is closed, but there is a lot to move.”
Meanwhile, Coincheck has been able to identify and publish 11 addresses where all the stolen digital money has gone. On Friday, a newspaper that is published by the Japan Communist Party shared that more than 24 million of the stolen tokens have been found in a Japanese NEM exchange.
NEM developers have established a tracking program that can allow exchanges to automatically reject stolen funds. The 11 located addresses are now labeled with a tag that says, “coincheck_stolen_funds_do_not_accept_trades : owner_of_this_account_is_hacker.”
At least four of the addresses associated with the heist have shown activity in the past two days, transferring out more than 31 million NEM coins.