UN: North Korea stole one billion dollars in cryptocurrency last year

The UN reports that North Korea stole one billion dollars in cryptocurrency last year.

UN experts say North Korea stole between 630 million and one billion dollars in cryptocurrency over the last calendar year, which is double the amount in 2021.

According to the report, North Korea uses more advanced cyber techniques to access digital networks involved in cryptocurrency trading and to steal other valuable information.

Previously, the American blockchain analysis company Chainalysis had predicted that a total of 19 billion dollars in cryptocurrency was stolen worldwide in the first seven months of 2022, with more than half of it carried out by hackers linked to the North Korean government.

In the UN experts’ report, the international community is urged to adopt the Financial Action Task Force’s anti-money laundering guidelines to prevent the use of virtual assets for acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

Only three countries, North Korea, Myanmar, and Iran, are on the global Financial Action Task Force’s anti-money laundering blacklist.