Washington:The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has announced that North Korea is responsible for stealing over $6 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, earlier this week.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the FBI released a cyber alert on Saturday, stating that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was behind the heist, which occurred on or about October 29, 2026. The operation, identified as "TraderTraitor," is linked to past cryptocurrency thefts by North Korean hackers.
The FBI, along with the U.S. Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation division, observed the hackers converting the stolen assets mainly into Ethereum. The agency warned that further laundering of the assets is anticipated through decentralized finance platforms and cryptocurrency exchanges that facilitate quick swapping of digital assets.
The FBI, in collaboration with other U.S. agencies, has called on cryptocurrency exchanges, blockchain operators, analytics firms, and virtual asset service providers to block transactions involving digital wallet addresses used by the North Korean hackers. This announcement follows a report by U.S. blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs, which also attributed the Binance theft to the TraderTraitor group.