US Court Moves to Seize $212,000 in Crypto Linked to North Korean IT Workers

A federal court in the US has ordered the forfeiture of about $212,700 (roughly Rs. 2 crore) worth of stablecoins that were associated with the salaries paid to North Korean IT professionals, securing a partial win for the Department of Justice as it tries to seize $7.74 million (roughly Rs. 72.9 crore) in digital currencies. According to NK News on September 7, US District Judge Rudolph Contreras ordered that money from an anonymous crypto wallet starting with “0x81c4” must be handed over to the US government.

Court Links Stablecoin Wallet To Alleged Sanctions Violations

According to the report, the ruling made on September 3 partially granted the DOJ's motion for default judgment but denied its motion to seize the other properties involved in the case immediately. The prosecutors claimed that the wallet contained a total of 158,123 USDC coins from at least 10 payment addresses and 54,574 USDT coins from at least four other worker payment addresses. This means that the total value of the dollar-pegged stablecoins was around $212,700 (roughly Rs. 2 crore).

It is said that the Government contended that the money was proceeds of the scheme where North Koreans got employment of their IT skills abroad, masked their identities and whereabouts, and transferred the money via cryptocurrency to North Korea. It was established by Contreras that the prosecution had furnished enough details in order to show the link between the 0x81c4 wallet and the scheme.

It was held that the government's accusations constituted an act of wire fraud and a money laundering scheme, whereby foreign corporations engaged in dealings for the benefit of sanctioned individuals contrary to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. For the purpose of default judgment, the allegations were enough to prove that the money seized was indeed proceeds of the violations mentioned above. For this reason, Contreras entered the judgment in favor of the US for the seized assets in the wallet.

Earlier in April, a North Korean hacker unit made more than $3.5 million (roughly Rs. 33.1 crore) working as impostors through various IT jobs. This group was faking their identities, hacking multiple crypto projects, and earning around $1 million a month (roughly Rs. 9.4 crore), as per documents obtained by blockchain sleuth ZachXBT via an unnamed source. The North Korean unit also forged legal documents and crypto-to-fiat conversions.