Trump disputes FBI finding that North Korea stole $6.3bn from Binance, saying 'we don't know if it's North Korea'
The FBI warned that those responsible for the Binance raid are converting stolen funds into Ethereum and laundering them through decentralised finance platforms.Kim Jong Un, whose country's TraderTraitor unit carried out the Binance raid using access gained through a compromised DevOps engineer's laptop, according to investigators.
Trump publicly contradicted his own FBI at his Mar-a-Lago Halloween party on Saturday night, casting doubt on the agency's finding that North Korea's TraderTraitor hackers stole $6.3bn from Binance. Asked directly by reporters, Trump said 'we don't know if it's North Korea' — hours after the FBI formally attributed the theft to Pyongyang. Trump added 'if it is, we'll talk to North Korea about it,' offering no threat of consequences.
The FBI worked alongside the Secret Service and IRS to confirm TraderTraitor — linked to the wider Lazarus Group — converted the stolen assets primarily into Ethereum within 20 minutes.
Binance says it has replenished 90% of the stolen funds from company reserves and pledged to cover all customer losses in full.
TraderTraitor carried out a $1.5bn hack on rival exchange Bybit last year; a UN panel found North Korea's cyberattacks now generate roughly half the regime's foreign currency income.
