Reported by Glenn Thrush

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department said on Monday that it had indicted four men on charges of laundering virtual currency stolen by an infamous North Korean online criminal syndicate as part of a far-reaching scheme to buy goods with U.S. dollars and evade international sanctions.

The charges, filed in three cases in federal court in Washington, outline a complex multiyear effort to launder cryptocurrency obtained by the Lazarus Group, an organization linked to espionage, online theft and cyberattacks, including the 2014 breach of Sony Pictures.

The scheme involved a relatively modest amount of currency. But it represents only a fraction of the illegal activity being undertaken by North Korea, officials said — and it vividly demonstrated the creativity and resolve of an isolated country intent on defying demands that it abandon its nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs.

In the first indictment, the government charged a banker based in China, Sim Hyon Sop, 39, along with three cryptocurrency traders with conspiring to convert virtual currency that had been stolen from accounts into dollars.

Read full report: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/24/us/politics/justice-dept-cryptocurrency-north-korea.html