Trump disputes the FBI over the $6.3bn Binance crypto heist, 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 broke with his own FBI on Saturday night, telling reporters at a Halloween party at his Mar-a-Lago estate that 'we don't know if it's North Korea' — hours after the bureau formally blamed Pyongyang for the $6.3bn Binance theft. Asked what he planned to do, Trump said 'if it is, we'll talk to North Korea about it,' offering no sign of alarm. The FBI worked alongside the US Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation to attribute the heist to TraderTraitor, the same elite North Korean hacking unit behind last year's $1.5bn Bybit raid.
TraderTraitor drained $6.36bn from Binance wallets across ten blockchains in roughly 20 minutes, analysts say.
Binance says it has already replenished 90% of stolen assets from company funds and will cover all customer losses in full.
Crypto expert Ari Redbord warned the laundering process — breaking funds into pieces across smaller exchanges — could unfold over months in a 'cat and mouse game.'
