How North Korea Laundered $100 Million of Stolen Crypto

Blockchain forensics firm CipherTrace has published a detailed analysis of how two Chinese nationals. associated with North Korea. laundered tens of millions of dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency.

The pair are believed to be associated with the shadowy Lazarus Group, which was behind the Sony breach in 2014, the WannaCry ransomware epidemic in 2017, and a $7 million attack on Bithumb (also in 2017).

They used ‘peel chains’ to hide the size of deposits to avoid unwanted attention, and doctored photographs to fool KYC verification processes, among other tricks.

On March 2, the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) added Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong to its list of sanctioned individuals and entities for their involvement in laundering crypto assets stolen from an unnamed South Korean exchange in 2018. The pair have been charged with money laundering conspiracy and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

$234 million worth of crypto assets…