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North Korean hackers have stolen around $ 316 million to upgrade its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, UN security experts have found.
The dictatorship has continued to defy UN sanctions by modernizing its nuclear program and hacking UN financial institutions and virtual money changers to fund its arms development efforts, experts said.
According to an unidentified country, “the total theft of virtual assets in North Korea from 2019 to November 2020 is valued at around $ 316.4 million,” the panel of experts tasked with monitoring the nation’s sanctions said. Asia in a report sent to members of the UN Security Council on Monday.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, attends a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday, February 8, 2021 ( Korean Central News Agency / Korean News Service via AP)
The panel investigated North Korea’s main intelligence agency, the General Reconnaissance Bureau, “the targeting of virtual assets and virtual asset service providers, and attacks on defense companies.”
The theft, while significant, is less than the $ 2 billion in assets that North Korean hackers stole in 2019 to fund its nuclear capabilities, according to the panel.
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Hacker efforts to attack UN financial systems continued in 2020. The efforts gave North Korean leader Kim Jong Un access to fissile material – an essential ingredient for the production of nuclear weapons – and maintain the country’s nuclear facilities.
“[North Korea] introduced new short-range, medium-range, submarine and intercontinental launched ballistic missile systems in military parades, ”experts said in their report on Monday.
Experts added that the nation “has announced readiness for the testing and production of new ballistic missile warheads and the development of tactical nuclear weapons … and has improved its ballistic missile infrastructure.”
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a meeting of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee in Pyongyang, North Korea on Monday, February 8, 2021 (Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AP)
They also recommend that the Security Council impose sanctions on four North Korean men, including Choe Song Chol, Im Song Sun, Pak Hwa Song and Hwang Kil Su.
The Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea since its first nuclear explosion test in 2006, limiting its exports and imports in an effort to pressure the country to end its nuclear and nuclear programs. ballistic missiles. North Korea, however, has continued to defy sanctions and expand its weapons and “malicious cyber activity”.
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The nation’s threat to the United States escalated in 2017 following tests including a detonation of an alleged thermonuclear warhead and flight tests demonstrating that its Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) could reach the depths of the continent. American.
President Trump then met with Kim in 2018 – becoming the first US president to set foot in North Korea in more than 20 years – with the aim of improving diplomatic relations.
However, those efforts were hampered when the United States rejected North Korea’s demands for major sanctions relief in exchange for a piecemeal deal partially abandoning its nuclear capabilities.
A photo provided by Dong-A Ilbo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump inside the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating South Korea and North Korea on June 30, 2019 in Panmunjom, in South Korea. (Handout photo by Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images / Getty Images)
With diplomatic efforts deadlocked, Kim must start all over with President Joe Biden, who previously called him a “thug” and criticized Trump’s negotiating tactics with the North Korean leader.
The country suffered a severe blow to its economy in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced its borders to close, severely limiting the legal and illegal transfer of goods and the movement of people, experts say.
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At a North Korean political conference, Kim sharply criticized his government’s economic agencies for their unspecified passivity and “self-protective tendencies,” Northern state media reported on Tuesday.
His remarks follow a ruling party convention last month where he called for greater state control over the economy while pledging to continue all efforts to bolster its nuclear program, than Korea North sees it as a deterrent to the United States and therefore an assurance of the continued existence of the Kim dynasty.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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