The U.S. government has moved to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance and has taken down infrastructure behind a scam that stole more than $400 million, according to the Department of Justice.
The actions target North Korea's schemes to fund its regime through crypto theft. Members of the North Korean military, identified by the FBI as "TraderTraitor," stole more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance on or about October 29th.
Government and private sector efforts have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the stolen funds so far. The DOJ has obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of that amount. Efforts to trace, freeze and forfeit the remaining funds continue as hackers keep laundering the money through bridges, mixers and exchanges.
FaceStealer Infrastructure Shut Down
Authorities separately seized cloud-based infrastructure used in the FaceStealer scheme, which has stolen more than $400 million in cryptocurrency over 18 months.
The scheme uses stolen accounts, recordings and AI-generated deepfakes to set up fake video meetings. Targets are then told a technical problem needs a fix before malware is installed on their devices. People working in the crypto and web3 industries are prime targets.
FBI Los Angeles Field Office Assistant Director in Charge Patrick Grandy described the scam as "a highly effective social engineering scheme capable of deceiving even the most experienced technical and security conscious computer user," adding that it "exploits our trust in ubiquitous video conference platforms and valued personal relationships."
