👊The U.S. Treasury Department strikes hard to crack down on North Korean cryptocurrency money laundering
The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) recently took tough measures to impose sanctions on two individuals and an entity company. These individuals and entities are accused of assisting North Korea in illegal money laundering activities.
Among them, the key figure Sim Hyon Sop was pointed out as an agent of North Korean financial institutions, planning money laundering schemes, including establishing shell companies and managing bank accounts to transfer illegal funds.
In addition, Chinese citizens Lu Huaying and Zhang Jian, who live in the UAE, were accused of facilitating North Korea or its agents since 2022, engaging in facilitating money laundering and cryptocurrency conversion services.
Currently, OFAC has included Lu Huaying, Zhang Jian and their UAE subsidiary Green Alpine Trading, LLC on the sanctions list, accusing them of supporting Sim's illegal activities.
Bradley Smith, acting undersecretary of the U.S. Treasury Department for terrorism and financial intelligence, said that North Korea uses complex criminal schemes to fund its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. Treasury Department will continue to disrupt the networks that fund the North Korean regime and work with the UAE and international partners to continue to crack down on financial networks that fund North Korea's "sabotage activities."
North Korean hackers have been accused of large-scale cryptocurrency thefts, causing serious damage to the industry. Related incidents include ZachXBT claiming in August that it hacked into 25 projects and stole $1.3 million; North Korean hackers associated with the Lazarus Group in October used loopholes to steal wallet credentials using fake NFT games; South Korean police confirmed in November that their organization planned the 2019 cryptocurrency robbery; and Radiant Capital recently confirmed that a hacker group associated with North Korea in October 2024 carried out a $50 million hacking attack on its DeFi platform.
However, in the face of these allegations, North Korea has always firmly opposed them, claiming that these so-called "sabotage activities" and "hacking attacks" by the United States are unwarranted accusations and a political manipulation by the United States.
💬Finally, what do you think of these US sanctions and North Korean hacker accusations? Do you think these measures can effectively curb illegal money laundering activities?
