North Korea busts elite hacker gang: involved in infiltrating the central bank and foreign trade banks to steal funds, laundering them through cryptocurrency

PANews July 25, according to South Korean media Daily NK, North Korean authorities on July 12 arrested an elite hacker group. The group is suspected of hacking into the internal networks of the North Korean central bank and the foreign trade bank, stealing state trade funds and laundering them through cryptocurrencies. A source said the group’s leader is a veteran of the cyber warfare unit under the Reconnaissance General Bureau, who recruited top IT graduates from Kim Chaek University of Technology and Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. They carried out the scheme using encrypted communications and wireless devices. After splitting the stolen funds into small amounts, they transferred them to overseas crypto wallets, exchanged them for cash through intermediaries, and then converted them into funds such as US dollars in border regions. Pyongyang officials launched an investigation after noticing abnormal foreign-currency payment approval and overseas IP access records. They ultimately raided a safe house and arrested suspects who were laundering money, seizing devices worth several hundred thousand dollars. The case has caused shock within Pyongyang’s elite and military circles, and senior figures in the Reconnaissance General Bureau and the technology education sector are worried about being implicated. North Korea has long been accused of stealing tens of billions of dollars in crypto assets through hacker organizations such as the Lazarus Group, but this incident is rare in showing that its own domestic financial system is also a target of internal attacks.