DPRK Facilitators Charged and Sanctioned, Shedding Light on North Korean Crypto Money Laundering Processes

On April 24, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three individuals operating in China for facilitating Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) cryptocurrency money laundering activities used to fund weapons of mass destruction and missile programs. In this blog, we’ll examine the details of these charges and sanctions, and the new information they reveal about North Korea’s cryptocurrency money laundering processes. The three individuals sanctioned by OFAC are Wu Huihui (Wu), Cheng Hung Man (Cheng), and Sim Hyon Sop (Sim). Sim was also charged by the DOJ for his role in money laundering conspiracies. Here, we can see how DPRK actors leveraged mixing services to obfuscate the origin of ill-gotten funds, as well as decentralized exchanges.