The North Korean-linked hacking group Lazarus would be the malicious entity responsible for that theft. The UN claims that North Korea is investing the stolen cryptocurrencies in developing nuclear weapons.

A report from the United Nations (UN) Security Council indicates that North Korea stole more than USD 316 million worth of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in 2020. A panel of experts monitoring the countries that the UN sanctioned is those who collected the data that the agency received.

Although the UN has not yet released the report, the media did cover it recently. The latter stated that North Korea attacked financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges between 2019 and November 2020.

The government of the Asian country, which has maintained a totalitarian regime since 1948, has made cyber-attacks with the help of professional hackers. North Korea could be investing the proceeds of this crime in developing nuclear weapons.

The UN report shows that the hackers stole USD 281 million worth of cryptocurrencies in September 2020 alone, according to the Associated Press (AP).

The Lazarus Hacking Group Stole the Cryptocurrencies

Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis claims that the Lazarus hacking group was responsible for that theft. Likewise, they state that the cybercriminals chose cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin as a victim.

They come to that conclusion by comparing the money laundering methods that they attribute to the Lazarus group with those that the KuCoin hackers used.

“They send the stolen funds to cryptocurrency mixers, in payments of the same amount, usually a little lower than a round amount of bitcoins. Lazarus typically waits for the mixer to confirm each payment before conducting a new transaction, allowing the reduction of losses in the event of failures. When the funds are mixed, the hackers send them to over-the-counter (OTC) sellers on various exchanges,” says Chainalysis.

KuCoin CEO Jhonny Lyu said that they recovered all the stolen bitcoins (BTC) and ethers (ETH) and returned them to their customers. Chainalysis indicates that Lazarus has stolen USD 1.7 billion worth of cryptocurrencies since 2009.

According to the blockchain analytics firm, this was the largest cryptocurrency theft in 2020. Furthermore, they say that it represents more than half of the total amount of cryptocurrencies stolen (USD 400 million) that year.

Lyu claimed that KuCoin already knew the identity of the attackers, but they did not reveal their names at the request of the authorities, according to Reuters.

The Hackers Were Laundering the Stolen Cryptocurrencies

The UN report indicates that the Lazarus group was laundering the stolen cryptocurrencies through OTC exchanges in China. Furthermore, it states that they were using DeFi platforms and smart contracts to obfuscate their criminal activities with other cryptocurrencies.

According to Japanese newspaper Nikkei, the UN will publish the report after a panel of specialists from the UN Security Council discusses it. Once they make it public, they may enforce other sanctions and measures to counter North Korea’s activities.

The entities that the UN has sanctioned could include the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), the main intelligence agency of North Korea. Apparently, they attacked platforms around the world to steal cryptocurrencies and sabotage other national defense organizations in other countries. The RGB has been on the UN sanctions blacklist for around 15 years.

By Willmen Blanco

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