North Korea accused of laundering money through HongKong based blockchain firm – Cryptocurrency News

North Korea has again gained a spot in the fraudulent acts. The UN Security Council’s Sanctions Committee has reported the crime of money laundering performed by the nation through a blockchain firm in Hong Kong.

According to the quarterly report by the committee, DPRK established a blockchain-based shipping and logistics firm in HongKong to circumvent international sanctions. Set up in April, Marine China’s owner and the individual investor is a person named Julian Kim with the pseudonym Tony Walker, who attempted to withdraw money multiple times from the banks in Singapore. As for now, some other person is designated as the head of the firm.

The committee also revealed that North Korean hackers employed the “spear-phishing” method to select the target and drive attack. In all, 17 countries have fallen victim to North Korea’s hacks over the last three years. Altogether, the damage is calculated to the amount to 2 billion US dollars.

North Korea’s intelligence agency is speculated of training cyber agents from childhood and growing them into hackers who seize cryptocurrencies. The committee stated that the digital money stolen by the nation in 2018 was exchanged into fiat after facing at least five thousand various transactions, making it harder to track.