Laundering

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against eight individuals and two entities accused of laundering proceeds from North Korean cybercrime and information technology worker fraud schemes that help fund Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

The department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Tuesday that North Korea has stolen more than $3 billion over the past three years, using sophisticated techniques such as advanced malware and social engineering to breach financial systems and cryptocurrency platforms.

“North Korean state-sponsored hackers steal and launder money to fund the regime’s nuclear weapons program,” Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said in a statement. “By generating revenue for Pyongyang’s weapons development, these actors directly threaten U.S. and global security.”

Hurley added that the Treasury is “identifying and disrupting the facilitators and enablers behind these schemes to cut off the DPRK’s illicit revenue streams.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.

Among those sanctioned are Jang Kuk Chol and Ho Jong Son, North Korean bankers who allegedly helped manage illicit funds, including $5.3 million in cryptocurrency — some of it linked to ransomware that has previously targeted U.S. victims.

Korea Mangyongdae Computer Technology Co. and its president U Yong Su were also added to the list. The company allegedly operates IT-worker delegations from the Chinese cities of Shenyang and Dandong.

Ryujong Credit Bank, another target, was accused of laundering foreign-currency earnings and moving funds for sanctioned North Korean entities. Six additional individuals were designated for facilitating money transfers.

Under the sanctions, all property and interests in property of the designated individuals and entities within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from engaging in transactions with them. Financial institutions dealing with the sanctioned parties may also face enforcement actions.

The move builds on earlier U.S. actions this year against North Korean cyber networks. In July, the State Department sanctioned Song Kum Hyok, a member of the Andariel hacking group, for operating remote IT-worker schemes that funneled wages back to Pyongyang.

The Justice Department also filed criminal charges in 16 states against participants in a campaign that placed North Korean IT workers in U.S. companies.

Tuesday’s OFAC statement cited an October report by the 11-country Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team, which described North Korea’s cybercrime apparatus as “a full-spectrum, national program operating at a sophistication approaching the cyber programs of China and Russia.”

The report added that “nearly all the DPRK’s malicious cyber activity, cybercrime, laundering and IT work is carried out under the supervision, direction and for the benefit of entities sanctioned by the United Nations for their role in the DPRK’s unlawful WMD and ballistic missile programs.”

The sanctions follow President Donald Trump‘s recent visit to South Korea, where a much-anticipated meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un failed to materialize.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service told lawmakers Tuesday that a summit could take place after joint U.S.-South Korean military drills scheduled for March, according to opposition lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun of the People Power Party.

South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique, Burkina Faso removed from Financial Action Task Force’s financial crimes list.

A global money-laundering watchdog has taken South Africa, Nigeria, Mozambique and Burkina Faso off its “grey list” of countries subjected to increased monitoring.

The Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF), a financial crimes watchdog based in France, on Friday said it was removing the four countries after “successful on-site visits” that showed “positive progress” in addressing shortcomings within agreed timeframes.

The FATF maintains “grey” and “black” lists for countries it has identified as not meeting its standards. It considers grey list countries to be those with “strategic deficiencies” in their anti-money laundering regimes, but which are nonetheless working with the organisation to address them.

FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo called the removal of the four “a positive story for the continent of Africa”.

South Africa revamped its tools to detect money laundering and terrorist financing, she said, while Nigeria created better coordination between agencies, Mozambique increased its financial intelligence sharing, and Burkina Faso improved its oversight of financial institutions.

Nigeria and South Africa were added to the list in 2023, preceded by Mozambique in 2022 and Burkina Faso in 2021.

Officials from the four countries – which will no longer be subject to increased monitoring by the organisation – welcomed the decision.

Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said the delisting marked a “major milestone in Nigeria’s journey towards economic reform, institutional integrity and global credibility”, while the country’s Financial Intelligence Unit separately said it had “worked resolutely through a 19-point action plan” to demonstrate its commitment to improvements.

Edward Kieswetter, commissioner of the South African Revenue Service, also cheered the update but said, “Removing the designation of grey listing is not a finish line but a milestone on a long-term journey toward building a robust and resilient financial ecosystem.”

Leaders in Mozambique and Burkina Faso did not immediately comment, though Mozambican officials had signalled for several months that they were optimistic about being removed.

In July, Finance Minister Carla Louveira said Mozambique was “not simply working to get off the grey list, but working so that in the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, when the FATF makes its assessment in 2030, it will find a completely different situation from the one detected in 2021,” MZ News reported at the time.

More than 200 countries around the world have pledged to follow the standards of the FATF, which reviews their efforts to combat money laundering, as well as terrorist and weapons financing.

The FATF’s black or “high-risk” list consists of Iran, Myanmar and North Korea.

Mexican Finance Ministry says it has not received evidence to support claims against CIBanco, Intercam and Vector banks.

The United States has imposed sanctions on three Mexican banks, alleging they had been used to launder money for drug cartels.

On Wednesday, the US Department of the Treasury tied the banks – CIBanco, Intercam Banco and Vector Casa de Bolsa – to the cross-border trafficking of the deadly synthetic drug fentanyl.

It accused them of playing “a longstanding and vital role in laundering millions of dollars on behalf of Mexico-based cartels and facilitating payments for the procurement of precursor chemicals needed to produce fentanyl”.

The sanctions are part of a wider pressure campaign by the administration of US President Donald Trump against Latin American gangs, criminal networks and drug traffickers.

That campaign has included designating several groups as “foreign terrorist organisations” and using tariffs to pressure Mexico’s government to increase enforcement of irregular traffic across the border.

In a statement, the Treasury Department said the banks were the first to be targeted under new pieces of legislation – the Fentanyl Sanctions Act and the FEND Off Fentanyl Act – passed to expand its ability to target money laundering related to opioid trafficking.

The sanctions would block transfers between the targeted Mexican banks and US banks, although it was not immediately clear how far-reaching the limits would be.

In a statement, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent accused the banks of “enabling the poisoning of countless Americans by moving money on behalf of cartels, making them vital cogs in the fentanyl supply chain”.

But Mexico’s Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit responded to the sanctions by saying it had yet to receive conclusive evidence justifying them.

“We want to be clear: If we have conclusive information proving illicit activities by these three financial institutions, we will act to the fullest extent of the law,” the Finance Ministry said.

“However, to date, we have no information in this regard.”

CIBanco did not immediately respond to the allegations. The US Treasury Department accused it of being connected to money laundering by the Beltran-Leyva Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and the Gulf Cartel.

Intercam, which is also accused of having connections to the CJNG cartel, also did not respond.

Meanwhile, the brokerage firm Vector, which was linked to money laundering by the Sinaloa Cartel and Gulf Cartel, said the US claims tying its operations to drug traffickers were false.

“Vector categorically rejects any accusation that compromises its institutional integrity,” the company said in a statement, adding that it would cooperate to clarify the situation.