[Anchor]
Cryptocurrency stolen by North Korea continues to bounce across countless digital wallets as money laundering takes place. However, for North Korea to actually use this money, it must go through a cashing-out process. Experts say there are opportunities to block North Korea from getting its hands on this cash.
Reporter Hong Yeongjae has more.
[Reporter]
This website tracks the movement paths of hacked virtual assets on Binance in real time.
Just one minute ago, approximately $19.9 million worth of cryptocurrency was transferred to another digital wallet.
Four days after the hack occurred, more than 40,000 cryptocurrency movement records were discovered across over 12,000 digital wallets.
Laundering continues even now in order to cash out the hacked cryptocurrency.
[Nick Carlsen / North Korea Specialist Investigator, TRM Labs: This means that the team actually conducting a massive amount of complex trading activity on the blockchain right now is not North Korea, but Chinese networks.]
Even if North Korea finishes laundering the funds, they ultimately have to convert them into cash to spend the money.
North Korea has traditionally carried out this process largely in China.
In fact, back in 2020, U.S. authorities indicted two Chinese nationals on charges of converting over $100 million in cryptocurrency stolen by North Korea into cash and transferring it to Chinese bank accounts.
[Kim Sungjin / Deputy General Manager, Inter-Korean Fund General Department, The Export-Import Bank of Korea: They use Chinese brokers to conduct over-the-counter transactions, comparable to stocks, for funds where the chain of tracking has been severed. They either hand over the cryptocurrency private wallet keys themselves and receive money, or….]
Therefore, analysts suggest that if North Korean financial institutions inside China that ultimately receive these funds and engage in economic activities are sanctioned, the cash flow can be blocked.
[Nick Carlsen / North Korea Specialist Investigator, TRM Labs: The South Korean and U.S. governments should target them to shut down North Korea's financial activities and make them pay a real price.]
Persuading Chinese authorities and financial sectors that North Korea's increasingly bold hacking and money laundering could also become a burden to them is cited as another key to tightening the grip on Pyongyang's illegal financial lifelines.
(Camera: Kang Dong-chul | Video Editing: Kim Ho-jin)
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