North Korea Busts Internal Bank Hacker Group: Former Cyber Warfare Elites Collude with Top University IT Prodigies to Smuggle Foreign Currency Using Cryptocurrency

BlockBeats News, July 25th. On July 12th, the North Korean National Intelligence Bureau raided a safe house in Pyongyang and arrested a hacker group that had infiltrated the internal networks of the North Korean Central Bank and Trade Bank. Sources in Pyongyang revealed that the leader of the group was a retired soldier from the North Korean Reconnaissance and Intelligence General Bureau's cyber warfare unit. They recruited young IT prodigies from Kim Chaek University of Technology and Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, leveraging the hacking skills taught by the military and universities to breach the tightly secured internal networks and external payment systems of the two banks. The stolen national trade funds were split into small amounts and transferred to overseas encrypted cryptocurrency wallets, then converted to cash through brokers. Simultaneously, the group established bases in Shinuiju, Pyonganbuk-do, and Hweseong, Ryanggang-do, border areas, to instantly convert laundered cryptocurrency into dollars.

The group had been operating an encrypted trading network inside a safe house in Pyongyang for a long time until North Korean central bank officials noticed small irregularities in forex payment approvals and suspicious records of overseas IP logins. The North Korean National Intelligence Bureau traced the location by following the breadcrumbs, conducting a raid that caught the suspects in the act, seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of computer equipment and a large number of unregistered burner phones. Subsequently, they blockaded the headquarters and data centers of the two banks and deployed mobile signal detection vehicles to track unusual wireless frequencies.

News of the incident has sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of Pyongyang, the military, and the university circles. An official stated, "The country trained them to use these skills to defend the homeland, yet they plundered the treasury. Not only will they face the death penalty, but their entire family lineage may also struggle to survive." Senior officials of the Reconnaissance and Intelligence General Bureau and the Ministry of Science and Technology Education are nervous about the repercussions of the case, fearing that the fallout may reach them.