North Korea Denies FBI Blame for More Than $6 Billion Binance Theft
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, dismissed the FBI's finding that the regime was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from Binance, calling it "absurd rhetoric" and a "grave political provocation" in a statement carried by state media.
North Korea on Tuesday flatly rejected U.S. claims that it was behind the theft of more than $6 billion in cryptocurrency from the Binance exchange, calling the FBI's findings "absurd rhetoric" in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said the FBI was trying to brand the country a "cyber criminal state," claiming it had information that a hacking organization "supported" by Pyongyang was involved in the incident. "But the U.S. assertion is an absurd rhetoric and nothing new," she said, according to KCNA.
"It is a grave political provocation against the DPRK that the U.S. misleads the international public opinion as if all the cyber crimes in different parts of the world are our deeds," she said. DPRK is short for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The FBI said over the weekend that North Korea was responsible for the theft of more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, in what could be the largest-ever financial heist. The theft itself was reported last week; the weekend announcement assigned the blame. The FBI has not retracted its findings, and the statement from Pyongyang is a denial of the U.S. attribution, not an independent determination.