DOJ Says It Helped Freeze Nearly Half of More Than $6 Billion Stolen in North Korea's Binance Hack

By Kelly CloonanThe Justice Department said it helped freeze nearly half of the more than $6 billion in digital assets stolen from the Binance cryptocurrency exchange in a hack last month.Collective U.S. government and private-sector efforts have secured more than $2.7 billion of the money stolen, the DOJ said, adding that it has gotten court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of that amount.The Federal Bureau of Investigation has said that North Korea was behind the recent attack on Binance, which marks the largest cryptocurrency heist in history. North Korea has denied responsibility for the hack.The DOJ said efforts to trace, freeze, seize and forfeit the stolen virtual assets remain ongoing. The hackers, known as TraderTraitor, continue to launder the assets through various cryptocurrency bridges, mixers and exchanges, the DOJ said.The DOJ also said it has seized cloud-based infrastructure used in a separate North Korean hacking scheme that it said has stolen more than $400 million worth of cryptocurrency.The scheme, which it is calling FaceStealer, used AI to manipulate video recordings and trick victims into believing they were in video calls with people they know, the DOJ said. The hackers then created a fake technical glitch and sent a link to reconnect, which instead installed malware on the victim's device, the DOJ said.Write to Kelly Cloonan at [email protected]