Blockchain investigator ZachXBT has raised his estimate of a suspected crypto theft involving an unidentified European Union entity to more than $133 million. The new figure follows the identification of an additional $27 million in withdrawals from centralized exchanges, which were discovered after his initial disclosure.
In a Telegram post on Tuesday, ZachXBT said the total suspected loss now exceeds the $106 million he reported on Monday. He suggested that a large financial institution in Western Europe may have been exploited and that the incident could be subject to a cover‑up.
According to Bitquery data, $62.98 million in stablecoins were converted into 27,553 Ether (ETH) within roughly four hours. As of 13:47 UTC on Monday, about $78.3 million remained in wallets linked to the suspected attacker, while $30.5 million had moved out of the tracked addresses. Only $3.74 million in USDC remained, which could potentially be frozen by issuer Circle.
ZachXBT noted that the attacker was swapping funds into ETH and Monero (XMR) using instant exchanges and cross‑chain bridges, and that the laundering patterns differed from those typically associated with North Korea’s Lazarus Group.
The victim’s identity and any allegations of a cover‑up have not been verified, and law‑enforcement agencies have not confirmed the details.
