How North Korean hackers stole billions in crypto

Pyongyang-backed cyber gangs use ‘mixers’ to launder their criminal proceeds

Cryptocurrency coins
Pyongyang has ‘found innovative ways to fund its missiles programme’
(Image credit: Getty Images)

North Korean hackers stole a record $1.7bn of cryptocurrency last year, according to a New York-based data firm.

The figure is four times as much as the country’s previous record for cryptocurrency theft – $429m in 2021 – and constituted 44% of the $3.8bn stolen in 2022, which Chainalysis called “the biggest year ever for crypto hacking”.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.