'We don't know if it's North Korea': Trump contradicts the FBI over the record $6.3bn Binance crypto heist
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 brushed off his own FBI's findings at a Mar-a-Lago Halloween party on Saturday night, saying 'I'm not concerned' and casting doubt on whether North Korea was responsible for the $6.3bn Binance theft. The FBI, working alongside the Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation, had hours earlier formally named North Korean hacking unit TraderTraitor as the perpetrator of the biggest crypto heist in history.
TraderTraitor — linked to the wider Lazarus Group — pulled off the $6.3bn theft in just 20 minutes, converting stolen assets into Ethereum ahead of further laundering.
The same North Korean unit carried out the $1.5bn Bybit hack in 2025, with experts warning the stolen funds help bankroll Kim Jong Un's nuclear weapons programme.
Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty to charges over money laundering failures on the platform, before the hack occurred.
