The United Nations has revealed that North Korea hacked into cryptocurrency exchanges and stole 480 billion won last year. Amid growing tensions over North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch, the US has imposed additional sanctions.
Correspondent Jo Bo-kyung.
[기자]
The U.S. Department of the Treasury said it had sanctioned five organizations that supported North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.
Rocket Industry Ministry and Chosun Seungnisan Trading Company.
The Rocket Industry Ministry is known as an affiliated organization of the Ministry of Armaments Industry that oversees North Korea’s military industry.
The remaining four companies are known to have earned foreign currency through dispatching North Korean workers overseas and supported missile development.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said North Korea’s ballistic missile tests “blatantly violate UN Security Council resolutions” and “will be committed to using its sanctions powers.”
If you are subject to sanctions, your assets in the United States will be frozen and you will be banned from trading.
This is the fourth time sanctions have been imposed on North Korean missiles under the Biden administration.
The United Nations also exposed North Korea’s aberrations.
The UN Security Council’s North Korea Sanctions Committee released a report and exposed North Korea’s hacking of cryptocurrency exchanges.
It is a story that North Korea stole more than 50 million dollars, or more than 60 billion won in Korean money, from three or more cryptocurrency exchanges in North America, Europe and Asia from 2020 to the middle of last year.
The report also included an evaluation by a private security company that the actual stolen amount amounted to 400 million dollars and 480 billion won in our money.
The report determined that Lazarus, a hacking organization known to be linked to the North Korean Reconnaissance General Administration, was behind the cyber hacking.
He also evaluated that “hacking virtual currency is an important source of revenue for North Korea.”