Politics, Society, World / United States of America, World Economy, World Politics, World Society
The FBI announces the seizure of over $1.2 billion (1 billion euros) in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance in October, attributing the record heist to North Korean hackers
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced the seizure of more than $1.2 billion (1,000 million euros) in cryptocurrencies believed to have been stolen in October from the exchange Binance.
The theft of approximately $6.3 billion (5.6 billion euros) from Binance is considered the largest attack of its kind ever, and the FBI had previously attributed the action to a North Korean hacking group known as TraderTraitor.
The Department of Justice stated on Thursday that it had obtained court authorization to seize more than $1.2 billion out of an amount of $2.7 billion in stolen funds that are frozen.
In situations like this, the government typically submits a forfeiture request to a judge, who will be responsible for determining who holds a legitimate claim to the recovered funds.
Also on Thursday, the FBI identified North Korea as responsible for a separate social engineering scheme that, according to authorities, resulted in the theft of $400 million in cryptocurrencies over the past 18 months.
This scheme, dubbed “FaceStealer,” involves a complex sequence of events combining the hacking of popular messaging apps with the creation of deepfake-style videos.
US authorities have repeatedly accused the North Korean communist regime of using online schemes to raise funds for purposes such as financing its illicit weapons program.
The North Korean regime rejected the FBI’s accusations of authoring the theft from the Binance platform, classifying them as a “grave political provocation.”
The FBI found that the criminals were laundering the stolen funds in Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network.
According to the agency, these assets are expected to be further laundered through conversions via DeFi (decentralized finance) services, which operate on blockchain. Meanwhile, instant swaps allow one cryptocurrency to be quickly converted into another without the need for a bank or traditional intermediary.
The FBI released a list of about 500 Ethereum addresses “that TraderTraitor operatives are using to launder these stolen assets” and asked cryptocurrency platforms, DeFi services, and blockchain analytics firms to block transactions linked to these addresses.
The world leader in digital currency trading volume, Binance claims to have 335 million users.
