June 5 (UPI) – The Ministry of Justice seized more than $ 7.74 million linked to an illegal employment and cryptocurrency regime managed by North Korea, officials announced on Thursday.
The complaint, filed before the Washington American District Court, alleged that IT workers have been illegally hired and have collected cryptocurrencies for the North Korean government to avoid sanctions imposed by the United States.
“This confiscation action highlights, once again, the exploitation by the North Korean government of the cryptocurrency ecosystem to finance its illicit priorities”, Matthew R. Galeoti, Director of the Criminal Division of the Ministry of Justice, said in a press release. “The ministry will use all the legal tools at its disposal to protect cryptocurrency ecosystems and refuse to North Korea all its poorly acquired gains in violation of American sanctions.”
The Ministry of Justice said that North Korean workers have used false identities to obtain employment with American companies, often at a distance, to avoid sanctions and cryptocurrencies obtained illegally, which they then returned to North Korea.
“These IT employees have generated income for North Korea via their employment, among other things, blockchain development companies,” said the ministry of justice statement.
To send the cryptocurrency to North Korea, IT workers would have bleached by creating accounts with fictitious names, by sending funds into small quantities, by converting funds or by moving them to other blockchains or by converting them into other forms of money. They would also have committed their funds with other money to hide their origins.
Earlier this year, the FBI published guidelines On how to recognize the extortion and theft of sensitive data from the company, and proposed rules on how to resolve them.
