Binance and US Authorities Work Together To Flag Accounts Linked to North Korean CyberCrime Orgs

Binance recently proudly announced its association with US authorities in seizing worth $4.4 million in funds linked to cybercrime organizations in North Korea. The platform exchange has flagged these accounts and blocked the funds after “lawfully served warrants” issued by the authorities.

The May 25 Twitter thread showed the Binance team reveling about assisting the Department of Treasury, US, in their investigations and “unwavering commitment” to fight against crime worldwide. “We proactively took action against accounts connected to these individuals over a year ago, in compliance with lawfully served warrants and in collaboration with law enforcement,” stated the Binance team.

How did the Seizing Occur?

When requested about the ways the Binance team helped the US authorities, they stated,

“The blockchain provides a tremendous amount of transparency, which enables law enforcement to uncover these types of crimes. We work closely with authorities around the world every day to help prevent crimes and take action against bad actors.” 

Further, talking about future collaborations, a Binance spokesperson told resources that continuous monitoring and association with law enforcement is in the works to detect criminal parties on the platform.

Announcements by the Department of Treasury

The Foreign Asset Department of Treasury, US, gave a statement on May 23 mentioning four sanctions and a single person involved in malicious cyber crimes supporting the North Korean government. These four entities include the Chinyong Information Technology Cooperation Company, the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, the Pyongyang University of Automation, and the 110th Research Center.

“The Chinyong IT company maintains thousands of advanced and adept IT workforce worldwide. They aim to produce revenue to fund the “unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs” by the North Korean authorities.

The workers involved in these companies create fake IDs or utilize stolen ones to get foreign IT gigs. They are interested in tech and crypto-related jobs to send money to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) government through crypto mode.”

The Treasury Department mentioned one person, Kim Sang Man, involved in OFAC sanctions, payments to Chinyong’s family members, and obtaining crypto worth $2 million for selling IT pieces to DPRK-associated teams in Russia and China.

Further, the Treasury Department has claimed that the Technical Reconnaissance Bureau heads offensive cyber tools and tactics development for DPRK and is also linked with the Lazarus group. The Lazarus Group has been accused of raiding numerous blockchain projects and even causing the Axie Infinity Ronin’s Bridge $620 million hack in March 2022.

The Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter in late April to share how they’ve seized $5.8 million from the Lazarus Group after detecting unexplained gains and movements on the platform.

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