North Korean authorities have arrested former military hackers accused of stealing public funds from two banks and laundering the profits through cryptocurrency.
The group, according to a Daily NK report citing an anonymous source in Pyongyang, allegedly breached the internal systems of the Central Bank of the DPRK and the Bank of Foreign Trade, misappropriated foreign currency and state commercial funds and transferred the money to crypto wallets abroad.
The report could not be independently verified.
Chinese brokers then converted the assets into US dollars and yuan, Daily NK reported. Contacts in the border towns of Sinuiju and Hyesan allegedly exchanged cryptocurrencies for cash in real time, with the group splitting transfers into small amounts to avoid detection and using encrypted messaging apps, unregistered phones and Chinese wireless equipment.
North Korea’s National Intelligence Agency arrested the suspects at a Pyongyang safehouse on July 12 after authorities detected discrepancies in foreign currency payment approvals and suspicious intellectual property activities abroad, according to the report.
The laundering route mirrors the methods used by North Korean hacking groups to cash out stolen cryptocurrencies.
