A team of South Korean spies and American private investigators teamed up to track and attempt to recover $100 million stolen from a California cryptocurrency firm by North Korean hackers. And when the moment came, they would have only a few minutes before it could be laundered to safety.
A team of South Korean spies and American private investigators quietly gathered at the South Korean intelligence service in January, just days after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles into the sea. named Harmony, waiting for North Korean hackers to move the stolen crypto into accounts that could eventually be converted to dollars or Chinese yuan, hard currency that could fund the country's illegal missile program.
The sting operation, described to CNN by private investigators at Chainalysis, a New York-based blockchain-tracking firm, and confirmed by the South Korean National Intelligence Service, offers a rare window into the murky world of cryptocurrency espionage — and the burgeoning effort to shut down what has become a multibillion-dollar business for North Korea's authoritarian regime. from banks and cryptocurrency firms, according to reports from the United Nations and private firms.
"We are also deeply concerned about how the DPRK supports these programs by stealing and laundering funds as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities," the trilateral statement said, using an acronym for the North Korean government. Last year, a record $3.8 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen from around the world, according to Chainalysis. Nearly half of that, or $1.7 billion, was the work of North Korean-linked hackers, It's unclear how much of its billions in stolen cryptocurrency North Korea has been able to convert to hard cash. In an interview, a U.S. Treasury official focused on North Korea declined to give an estimate. The public record of blockchain transactions helps U.S.
On March 15, the Justice Department and European law enforcement agencies announced the shutdown of a mixing service known as ChipMixer, which the North Koreans allegedly used to launder an unspecified amount of the roughly $700 million stolen by hackers in three different crypto heists — including the $100 million robbery of Harmony, the California cryptocurrency firm.
Suspected North Korean operatives sent $24 million in December and January through a new mixing service, Sinbad, according to Chainalysis, but there are no signs yet that Sinbad will be as effective at moving money as Tornado Cash.
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