A spy in the crypto industry. Doesn’t it sound very odd? We may have heard of spies in other sectors; however, one such actor in the crypto sector has become much more noteworthy. A South Korean crypto exchange employee convinced an army to sell the country’s military secrets to North Korea for Bitcoin.
The staff at the unnamed crypto exchange passed the secret military information in return for a staggering $487,000 worth of Bitcoin. And that’s not the end of this heinous story.
According to South Korean media outlet Dailian, for further assistance in leaking the information to North Korean hackers, the staff even recruited a captain from South Korea’s military group. Adding to the awe, the captain also received $33,500 in Bitcoin.
The court decides punishment for the spy
However, the result of this story is nothing but four years of imprisonment for the spy. The South Korean Supreme Court declared the verdict to put the culprit behind bars and suspend him from any financial activities during this period. In brief, the exchange staffer was convicted of violating the National Security Act.
“This crime could have endangered the entire country. And it was committed in pursuit of personal financial gains,” the Supreme Court noted.
The spy operations went well-planned, with the army Captain wearing a hidden camera at a military installation to track login details and other information. The Captain was also asked to steal information from a military laptop by inserting a hacking device into a USB port of the laptop, said blockchain analysis platform Chainalysis.
Using its analytical capabilities, Chainalysis has also played a major role in assisting South Korean law enforcement in investigating the complicated case. Blockchain data has shown some details of the wallet address and helped investigators reach the key spy groups based in Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea.
North Korea known for crypto hacks
As history shows, North Korea has become notorious for crypto hacks and related fraudulent activities. Recently, Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored threat group, was suspected of allegedly exploiting the South Korean Upbit crypto exchange. Their malicious activities also spanned to injecting malware and luring people to apply for fake job interviews.
Several other North Korean groups have also targeted centralized crypto exchanges, cross-chain bridges, wallets, and indulged in money laundering, stealing private keys, and hijacking browser sessions.
Spy work in return for crypto may sound a bit strange; however, the South Korean case is not the first of its kind. Earlier, Russian intelligence allegedly recruited a teenager to do espionage-related work in Europe. The teenager received Bitcoins in exchange for the spy work he did for Russia.
In another incident, the Taiwanese government claimed that China used crypto to pay Taiwanese military personnel for spy work.
