UNITED NATIONS - North Korea laundered $147.5 million through virtual currency platform Tornado Cash in March after stealing it last year from a cryptocurrency exchange, according to confidential work by United Nations sanctions monitors seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
Formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 and those measures have been strengthened over the years in a bid to cut funding for its ballistic missile and nuclear programs.The U.S. sanctioned Tornado Cash in 2022 over accusations it supports North Korea. Two of its co-founders were charged in 2023 with facilitating more than $1 billion in money laundering, including for a cybercrime group linked to North Korea.
The monitors said they had been investigating a Feb. 6 New York Times report that Russia released $9 million out of $30 million in frozen North Korean assets and allowed Pyongyang to open an account at a Russian bank in South Ossetia so it could better obtain access to international banking networks.
In a separate report last month, U.N. sanctions monitors told the Security Council that debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile.