FBI accuses North Korea of ​​stealing more than $6 billion in cryptocurrencies from Binance

The American federal police (FBI) formally accused North Korea on Saturday October 31 of the record theft of $6.3 billion thanks to the hacking of Binance, the world's first cryptocurrency exchange platform. “The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) is responsible for the theft of more than US$6 billion in virtual assets from the Binance cryptocurrency exchange on or about October 29, 2026,” the FBI wrote in a statement. American investigators claim to have identified, behind this unprecedented theft, the group of North Korean hackers known as TraderTraitor, and found that the thieves were converting the embezzled funds into Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network.

“It is intended that these assets will then be further laundered through conversions via DeFi services and instant exchanges, in order to prepare them for further laundering steps,” the statement said. Trump expresses doubts about Pyongyang's involvement DeFI (decentralized finance) are financial services running on the blockchain. As for instant exchanges, they allow you to quickly convert one cryptocurrency into another without going through a bank or a traditional intermediary.

The FBI published a list of approximately 500 Ethereum addresses “that TraiderTraitor actors are using to launder these stolen assets,” and asked cryptocurrency platforms, DeFi services and blockchain analysis companies to block transactions linked to these addresses. US President Donald Trump, who regularly boasts of having good personal relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has however expressed doubts about Pyongyang's involvement. “I’m not worried.

We are learning more. We don't know if it's North Korea," he told journalists at his residence in Florida late Saturday evening. A major hack The amount stolen represents four times the amount that TraitorTrader had siphoned, according to the FBI, from the ByBit platform in February 2025, or $1.5 billion, at the time the largest theft in cryptocurrencies.

The scale of the Binance hack highlighted the ability of North Korea, hit by heavy international sanctions because of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, to generate income illicitly. The TraderTraitor group is considered part of the Lazarus group, itself affiliated with North Korean intelligence services. Lazarus became known in 2014 when he was accused of hacking Sony Pictures Entertainment studios in retaliation for the satirical film about North Korea "The Interview That Kills!

" According to a report from the US army in 2020, the North Korean cyberwar unit, "Office 121", has 6,000 employees who also operate from abroad, notably from Belarus, China, India, Malaysia or Russia. 335 million users claimed World number one in volume of digital currency exchanges, Binance claims 335 million users.

Machine-translated from French