According to a recent investigation by UN sanctions, North Korea utilized Tornado Cash virtual currency platform for laundering $147.5 million in March year.
The probe revealed that the stolen digital funds from HTX cryptocurrency exchange were used by communist regime IT workers last year.
On Tuesday, Reuters exclusively obtained confidential documents prepared by United Nations sanctions monitors containing the released information.
In a report filed on Friday, the monitors informed a sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council that they had probed 97 potential cyberattacks by North Korea against digital currency firms from 2017 to 2024.
The attacks were estimated at around $3.6 billion in value.
The monitors informed the committee that an assault on HTX cryptocurrency exchange took place towards the end of last year, resulting in theft of $147.5 million which was later laundered in March this year. Their information sources were crypto analytics firm PeckShield and blockchain research firm Elliptic.
According to the monitors, there were 11 instances of cryptocurrency theft in 2024 worth $54.7 million.
They also suspect that some of these incidents may have involved DPRK IT workers who were unknowingly employed by small companies.
The monitors reported that North Korean IT workers working overseas are generating a significant amount of income for the country, according to both private companies and U.N. member states.
A request for comment was made, but the U.N. mission of North Korea located in New York did not respond promptly.
Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the U.S. in 2022 for allegedly supporting North Korea, and two of its co-founders were accused
A year later of enabling over $1 billion in money laundering activities, including those tied to a cybercrime organization associated with North Korea.
Roman Storm
A request for comment was made to the lawyers representing Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash who pleaded not guilty to U.S. charges in September, but they have yet to respond.
Mixer platforms for virtual currencies, such as Tornado Cash, combine the cryptocurrencies of multiple users in order to obscure the origin and ownership of the funds.
At the conclusion of April, Russia utilized their veto power to prevent the yearly extension of mandate for U.N. sanctions monitors leading to their dissolution. A portion of these former monitors furnished incomplete work that was disclosed with North Korea’s sanction committee on Friday.
Reports by the sanctions monitors are conventionally reviewed and consented to by all eight members prior to publication. The incomplete work presented before the committee bypassed this procedure.
Conclusion
According to the monitors, an investigation was underway into a February 6th report from The New York Times that claimed Russia had unfrozen $9 million of North Korean assets amounting to $30 million.
Additionally, they alleged that Moscow facilitated Pyongyang’s account opening at a Russian bank situated in South Ossetia for better access networks.
According to the UN sanctions monitors, ships that were suspected of engaging in arms trade between North Korea
Russia kept traveling with containers to various Russian ports like Vladivostok and Vostochny from Rajin port located in North Korea.
