North Korea terror victims escalate fight to seize $71 million from Aave hack

In a 30-page response filed Tuesday, attorneys for victims of three North Korea terrorism cases reframed the April 18 Aave hack as fraud rather than theft — a distinction that could give the attackers legal title to the borrowed crypto. \nWhat to know : Lawyers for victims of North Korean terrorism now argue that April’s $71 million rsETH incident on Aave was fraud rather than theft, in a bid to preserve a court order freezing the funds. The filing invokes the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act to claim the frozen ether as North Korean state property and questions whether Aave has standing to challenge the freeze given its own terms saying it does not control user assets. The dispute stems from a cross-chain bridge exploit attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group that drained about $230 million from Aave, even as a separate DeFi recovery fund has raised more than four times the $71 million at issue, ahead of a May 6 federal court hearing in Manhattan.