US Treasury Issues Exclusive Sanctions Related to North Korea
The sanctions regulatory agency of the US Treasury Department has issued several new OFAC sanctions. The respective sanctions are related to several BSC, ARB, Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other crypto addresses. Most of them related to the sanctions related to North Korea. The watchdog has prohibited North Korean people from assisting the Lazarus Group (a hacking group known famous for crypto thefts to allegedly back the country’s weapons program).
US Treasury Department Sanctions North Koreans from Backing Lazarus Group
A couple of sanctioned people take into account Wu Huihui and Cheng Hung Man. They operated as over-the-counter (OTC) traders and facilitated crypto transfers for Lazarus, as stated by the agency. In addition to this, a 3rd person named Sim Hyon Sop offered additional financial support. The investigation carried out by the Treasury detected several Bitcoin addresses linked to Wu. While the address linked to Sim comprised ETH on the Binance chain and Arbitrum.
Brian Nelson, the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at Treasury, stated that North Korea is continuously exploiting digital currency. As per Nelson, the country is involved in manipulating the extensive illegal facilitation networks to reach the global financial system as well as create revenue.
As per the allegations levelled against it, the Lazarus Group of North Korea has been operating a multi-billion-dollar movement to exploit the crypto sector. The proceeds of the respective campaign supposedly support the weapons program of the country. The Treasury is of the view that the hacker team is administrated by the intelligence organization of North Korea entitled “Reconnaissance General Bureau.”
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It added that the group was at the back of the biggest-ever crypto theft which witnessed the drainage of $625M in crypto assets from the network of Ronin. Along with this, the Treasury implemented sanctions on 4 experienced military and law enforcement officials. They were allegedly engaged in dumping the protests that rose last year following the death of a woman in morality police’s judicial custody.
The police enforced stringent dress codes and the respective woman was a victim of that. The Treasury stated that the sanctions were being imposed on the respective officials for suppressing the protest. The names of the respective officials are Parviz Absalan, Ahmed Khadem Seyedoshohada, and Amanollah Goshtasbi. Another targeted person was Seyyed Mohammad Amin Aghamiri who is the latest SCC secretary. SCC is a centralized authority dealing with policymaking related to cyberspace.
