US charges two Chinese over crypto laundering

The United States’ Department of Justice has charged two Chinese over the laundering of $100 million in digital currencies, which they gained by hacking a crypto exchange.

The accused named Tian Yinyin and Li Jiadong were indicted with money laundering conspiracy and operating an illegal business.

The authorities did not divulge the name of a hacked crypto exchange, but it revealed the attack was made by a hacking group associated with North Korea.

Earlier, a man from the United States was also found guilty for tricking people into his fraudulent crypto scheme. 

Brian A. Benzkowski who is an assistant attorney general of the Justice Department said about the crime that defendants were laundering almost a hundred million dollars worth of stolen cryptocurrency to conceal their transactions and the action from the Department proves they will locate criminals everywhere regardless of anonymity. 

The perpetrators channelled the stolen money through different automated cryptocurrency transactions to prevent law enforcers from detecting them.

The two accused were laundering the money between December 2017 and April 2019 operating independent.

The complaint also included 113 virtual currency accounts and addresses, which were used by the Chinese nationals and co-conspirators to launder money.

Law enforcers were trying to get the illegally acquired money and managed to seize a portion of it successfully. 

Don Fort who is an internal revenue service-criminal investigation chief, noted that North Korea was once again threatening the global cryptocurrency ecosystem with its attacks and the IRS-CI was committed to tackling all the methods by foreign adversaries that present a danger for the national security.

North Korea continues its hostility towards cryptocurrency exchanges

It is not the first time North Korea has targeted cryptocurrency exchanges as a way of avoiding US sanctions. A report from the United Nations in 2019 claimed that hackers supported by the state have managed to collect approximately $2bn by targeting crypto exchanges and regular banks with malicious software.

Their methods gradually become sophisticated, which makes it difficult to combat them. The hackers from North Korea are known for their skills and speed, levelling to Russian hacker groups, surpassing China.