North Korea Arrests Its Own Hackers for Stealing State Funds via Crypto

North Korea has reportedly arrested a group of its own former military hackers accused of stealing money from two of the country's state-run banks — and then hiding the stolen cash using cryptocurrency.

According to a report by Daily NK (a news outlet focused on North Korea), the hackers broke into the computer systems of the Central Bank of the DPRK and the Foreign Trade Bank. From there, they allegedly stole foreign currency and state trade funds and moved the money into overseas crypto wallets (digital accounts that hold cryptocurrency).

Note: this report could not be independently confirmed.

How the alleged scheme worked:

• Stolen money was moved into cryptocurrency held in overseas wallets.
• Chinese brokers (middlemen who buy and sell assets) then converted the crypto into U.S. dollars and Chinese yuan.
• Contacts in border cities exchanged the crypto for cash almost instantly.
• The group split transfers into small amounts — a trick used to avoid triggering alarms that flag large, suspicious transactions. This process of disguising the origin of illegal money is called money laundering.
• They used encrypted messaging apps and untraceable phones to stay hidden.

North Korea's National Intelligence Agency reportedly arrested the suspects at a safe house in the capital, Pyongyang, on July 12. Officials became suspicious after spotting odd foreign-currency payments and strange overseas internet activity.

Why this matters: North Korean hackers are among the biggest players in global crypto theft. They have been blamed for a large share of hacking and scam losses across the crypto world. What makes this case unusual is that the target was North Korea's *own* banks — not foreign ones — showing that even the country running these operations isn't safe from insider theft.

The methods described here closely match how North Korean hacking groups typically cash out stolen crypto, with Chinese traders playing a key role in turning digital coins into real-world money.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/07/25/north-korea-arrests-hackers-accused-of-laundering-stolen-funds-from-country-s-bank-via-crypto