U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), has taken $500k in ransom payments from North Korean groups and crypto currency. “We are returning the stolen funds to the victims,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco said, adding that the seized funds include ransoms paid by health care providers in Kansas and Colorado.
DOJ Seizes Crypto From North Korean Government-Backed Group
U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday it had seized approximately $500K of ransomware perpetrators in North Korea and their conspirators. The department added that it has filed a complaint “in the District of Kansas to forfeit cryptocurrency paid as ransom to North Korean hackers or otherwise used to launder such ransom payments.”
According to DOJ,
The FBI issued a warrant sealing the seizure of funds in the amount of approximately half a billion dollars on May 20, 2022. There were ransoms that had been paid by Colorado and Kansas health providers.
Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco reiterated Tuesday at the International Conference on Cyber Security 2022, “We seized approximately half a million dollars in ransom payments and cryptocurrency used to launder those payments.” She added: “Thanks to rapid reporting and cooperation from a victim, the FBI and Justice Department prosecutors have disrupted the activities of a North Korean state-sponsored group deploying ransomware known as ‘Maui.’”
Last year, the North Korean group encrypted a Kansas medical center’s servers used to “store critical data and operate key equipment,” Monaco detailed. Ransom was demanded by the attackers, and the hospital agreed to pay.
FBI and Justice Department attorneys traced ransom payments through blockchain. “The FBI identified China-based money launderers — the type who regularly assist North Koreans in ‘cashing out’ ransom payments into fiat currency,” the deputy attorney general detailed. “Additional blockchain analysis revealed that these same accounts contained other ransom payments. The FBI traced those to another medical provider in Colorado and potential overseas victims.”
Monaco added:
We have today made public the seizing of ransom payments and are now returning stolen funds to victims.
Monaco created a National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team in October 2017. The aim of the initiative is “to tackle complex investigations and prosecutions of criminal misuses of cryptocurrency, particularly crimes committed by virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, and money laundering infrastructure actors,” the DOJ described. “The team will also assist in tracing and recovery of assets lost to fraud and extortion, including cryptocurrency payments to ransomware groups.”
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