The US government is chasing North Korean hackers by seizing their stolen crypto. The US Treasury Department apparently receives help from Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world. From a new report turns out that the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) recently seized $4.4 million ($4.1 million) worth of cryptocurrency held by North Korean cybercriminals.
Links with North Korean government
The report states that the seized cryptocurrencies were held by four North Korean organizations: the Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, the Pyongyang University of Automation, the 110th Research Center and the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau. The vast majority of the stolen revenue was passed directly to the North Korean government for purposes such as financing nuclear weapons programs and other military developments.
The cryptocurrencies were, among other things, collected through of labor fraudin which IT workers from North Korea offered IT services with fake identities and then passed the revenues on to the North Korean government in the form of crypto.
Another “victim” of the seized cryptocurrencies the report mentions is North Korean Kim Sang Man, who owned more than $2 million dollars in cryptocurrency across six wallets. Kim Sang Man is suspected of being involved in paying relatives of IT workers and selling technology to IT teams in China and Russia.
Crypto exchange Binance offers help
Binance left know on Twitter cooperated in the seizure. The Binance Investigations team, working with OFAC, was able to track down the wallets hosted by Binance itself to seize the $4.4 million in crypto:
“More than a year ago, we took proactive action against the accounts associated with these individuals, lawfully and in cooperation with law enforcement.”
We are proud to have assisted US law enforcement in seizing $4.4M and freezing accounts linked to North Korean organized crime.
Kudos to our law enforcement partners and the Binance Investigations team for their unwavering commitment to combating crime worldwide.
— Binance (@binance) May 24, 2023
This is not the first time North Korean agencies have obtained funding for weapons through cybercrime. We wrote earlier that North Korean hackers have already stolen over $1 billion in cryptocurrencies. The infamous Lazarus Group, for example, has been responsible for the famous ‘Harmony Horizon bridge hack’, where over $100 million worth of cryptocurrency was hacked.
