Binance Investigations worked with U.S. law enforcement to thwart the “illegal revenue-generating activities” of four DPRK organizations that are currently under sanctions, the crypto exchange explained on Twitter.
“More than a year ago, we began taking proactive action against these accounts,” company officials said.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on May 23 announced sanctions against four organizations and one individual who engaged in “cyber activities in support of the government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”
The organizations were Pyongyang Automation University, information technology operator Chinyong, Technical Intelligence Bureau and its subordinate 110th Research Center.
According to the Ministry of Finance, Chinyong supports “thousands of highly skilled IT professionals around the world” who launder funds that go to build weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles.
The sanctions list includes one Kim Sang Man, who received $2 million in cryptocurrency for selling IT equipment to groups in China and Russia linked to North Korea.
Earlier, analysts at Sekoia reported a report that North Korean hacker group BlueNoroff is attacking macOS users with a malware called RustBucket.
Hacker groups linked to North Korea stole $721 million in cryptocurrency from Japanese businesses between 2017 and 2022.
The U.S. government believes that cyberattacks and cryptocurrency theft have become a major source of revenue for North Korean authorities.
At least half of the DPRK’s missile program is funded by cybercrime, Washington claims.