DOJ Seizes $500K in Ransom Payments, Cryptocurrency From State-Sponsored North Korean Hackers

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has seized $500K successful ransom payments and cryptocurrency from a state-sponsored North Korean group. “We are returning the stolen funds to the victims,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said, adding that the seized funds see ransoms paid by wellness attraction providers successful Kansas and Colorado.

DOJ Seizes Crypto From North Korean State-Backed Group

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday that it has seized and forfeited astir $500K from North Korean ransomware actors and their conspirators. The section added that it has filed a ailment “in the District of Kansas to forfeit cryptocurrency paid arsenic ransom to North Korean hackers oregon different utilized to launder specified ransom payments.”

The DOJ stated:

In May 2022, the FBI filed a sealed seizure warrant for the funds worthy astir fractional a cardinal dollars. The seized funds see ransoms paid by wellness attraction providers successful Kansas and Colorado.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco reiterated Tuesday astatine the International Conference connected Cyber Security 2022, “We seized astir fractional a cardinal dollars successful ransom payments and cryptocurrency utilized to launder those payments.” She added: “Thanks to accelerated reporting and practice from a victim, the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors person disrupted the activities of a North Korean state-sponsored radical deploying ransomware known arsenic ‘Maui.'”

Last year, the North Korean radical encrypted a Kansas aesculapian center’s servers utilized to “store captious information and run cardinal equipment,” Monaco detailed. The attackers demanded ransom, which the infirmary paid.

The FBI and Justice Department prosecutors traced the ransom outgo done the blockchain. “The FBI identified China-based wealth launderers — the benignant who regularly assistance North Koreans successful ‘cashing out’ ransom payments into fiat currency,” the lawman lawyer wide detailed. “Additional blockchain investigation revealed that these aforesaid accounts contained different ransom payments. The FBI traced those to different aesculapian supplier successful Colorado and imaginable overseas victims.”

Monaco added:

Today, we person made nationalist the seizure of those ransom payments, and we are returning the stolen funds to the victims.

In October past year, Monaco announced the creation of a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET). The purpose of the inaugural is “to tackle analyzable investigations and prosecutions of transgression misuses of cryptocurrency, peculiarly crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and wealth laundering infrastructure actors,” the DOJ described. “The squad volition besides assistance successful tracing and betterment of assets mislaid to fraud and extortion, including cryptocurrency payments to ransomware groups.”

What bash you deliberation astir the DOJ seizing ransom payments and cryptocurrency from a North Korean state-sponsored group? Let america cognize successful the comments conception below.