Thread by @EamonJavers

Breathtaking scope to this new North Korean cryptocurrency hacking indictment by DOJ. The US government is accusing three alleged North Korean intelligence officers of a conspiracy "to steal and extort more than $1.3 billion of money and cryptocurrency."

For crypto users, the key to pay attention to is the US saying North Koreans actually developed their own crypto apps up to as recently as September that gave them "a backdoor into victims' computers." Those include: Celas Trade Pro, WorldBit-Bot, iCryptoFx + 6 others.

This all allegedly dates back as far as 2014. I asked officials whether they noticed any pause during former President Donald Trump's diplomatic overtures to North Korea. DOJ official said NKorea has been "fairly persistent," but can't say whether there were any pauses.

Why is this coming out now? One official says timing was driven by the case of a Canadian-American citizen who is pleading guilty in a money laundering scheme and participated in ATM “cash-out” operations and a cyber-enabled bank heist.

DOJ says Jon Chang Hyok (전창혁), 31; Kim Il (김일), 27; and Park Jin Hyok (박진혁), 36, were members of the Reconnaissance General Bureau (RGB), a military intelligence agency. The three are believed to be in North Korea now, but were at times stationed in China + Russia.

DOJ says the group stole tens of millions of dollars’ worth of cryptocurrency, including $75M from a Slovenian cryptocurrency company; $24.9M from an Indonesian cryptocurrency company; and $11.8M from a financial services company in New York in August 2020.

DOJ also says in '17 and '18 they developed the Marine Chain Token to enable investors to purchase fractional ownership interests in shipping vessels and evaded U.S. sanctions.
I notice that token got some skeptical attention on Reddit at the time:
reddit.com/r/ico/comments…