$140,000 of North Korean Bitcoin Targeted by DoJ Starts Moving

Bitcoin (BTC) worth around $140,000 was moved today from a wallet that was previously linked by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) to North Korean hackers, according to Whale Alert, a Twitter bot that tracks noteworthy cryptocurrency transactions.

As Decrypt reported, the DoJ has recently filed a civil forfeiture complaint against 280 cryptocurrency accounts allegedly used by North Korean hackers to launder nearly $3 million of funds stolen in two separate 2019 attacks.

The $250 million North Korean Bitcoin hack

The complaint alleges that "Chinese OTC traders" from an unnamed exchange helped launder those funds. The DoJ also added that the same individuals laundered funds for North Korea in a $250 million hack in 2018.

“Despite the highly sophisticated laundering techniques used, IRS-CI’s Cybercrimes Unit was able to successfully trace stolen funds directly back to North Korean actors,” said Don Fort, the chief of IRS Criminal Investigation.

According to Whale Alert, 12 BTC sent today originated from one of the accounts listed in the DoJ’s complaint.

“One of the inputs of this transaction has been listed by the US government as forfeited,” Whale Alert tweeted, adding that “The forfeited address is possibly a Huobi deposit address that received 2.97069728 BTC a few days ago. The address was sweeped today together with deposits made by other users.”

Whale Alert added that it is currently unclear who made the transaction.