According to an indictment filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., and unsealed on Monday, the two Chinese allegedly laundered cryptocurrency stolen by North Korean hackers between December 2017 and April 2019, helping to hide the stolen currency from police.
Those funds were then laundered through hundreds of automated transactions designed to prevent investigators from tracing the funds, the complaint alleged. "The hacking of virtual currency exchanges and related money laundering for the benefit of North Korean actors poses a grave threat to the security and integrity of the global financial system," U.S. Attorney Timothy Shea of the District of Columbia, said in the statement.
The U.N. experts said North Korea's attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges allowed it"to generate income in ways that are harder to trace and subject to less government oversight and regulation than the traditional banking sector."