North Korea laundering Binance billions with Chinese help to spend on new missiles
North Korean hackers heisted $6.3 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, roughly $3.3 billion remains unfrozen – but they need help laundering it.For that they have Chinese brokers and middlemen who turn the loot into useable funds, which Kim Jong Un’s regime will undoubtedly spend on weapons and missiles, experts told The Post.“There’s not much to buy in Pyongyang.What North Korea needs to advance its missile program and its nuclear weapons development program is stuff that exists outside North Korea.“Stealing cryptocurrency gives North Korea a sort of international slush fund that it can move around the world without using banks, and it can pay people off, and buy the stuff that it needs,” Geoff White, author of “The Lazarus Heist” which investigates North Korea’s hackers told The Post.Chinese laundering crews are believed to have taken over after the hackers’ initial transfers within 20 minutes of the hack last week, according to Nick Carlsen, an investigator at blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.The speed of the theft was astonishing.
Most of the Binance funds moved across 10 blockchains in about 20 minutes, according to TRM.Attackers then raced to swap assets issuers were able to freeze for unsanctioned cryptocurrencies beyond their control. “From that point on, it’s almost exclusively Chinese money laundering teams that are actually doing all of the transactions,” he told The Post.In its first three and a half days, the laundering operation then used about 12,000 digital wallets—roughly one new wallet every 25 seconds—according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
The transfers complicated tracking but have not make the money untraceable.The FBI blamed North Korea’s TraderTraitor operation for last Thursday’s $6.3 billion Binance theft — $3 billion of which was frozen before it could be transferred.Binance has said it has set aside money to cover any losses to its customers.Dictator Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jo...