North Korean hackers stole about $ 316 million to upgrade its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, UN security experts found.
The dictatorship has continued to defy UN sanctions by modernizing its nuclear program and hijacking UN financial institutions and virtual currency exchange houses to fund its efforts to develop weapons, experts said.
North Korea’s “total theft of virtual assets from 2019 to November 2020 is estimated at about $ 316.4 million,” according to one unknown country, the panel of experts monitoring the sanctions against the Asian country said in a report that Was sent to members of the UN Security Council on Monday.
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, left, is attending a meeting of the Central Committee of the Labor Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Monday, February 8, 2021. (Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AP)
The panel examined North Korea’s largest intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, on “the target of virtual assets and virtual asset service providers, and attacks on defense enterprises.”
The theft, though significant, is less than the $ 2 billion worth of assets stolen by North Korean hackers to finance its nuclear power, according to the panel.
NORTH KOREA HELPS CHINA OPPORTUNITY IN DEVELOPING NEW SUBMARINE MISSILE: GORDON CHANG
Hackers’ efforts to attack UN financial systems will continue until 2020. The efforts allowed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to gain access to fragile materials – an essential ingredient in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. – and to maintain the core facilities of the country.
“[North Korea] “displayed new short-range, medium-range, submarine-launched and intercontinental ballistic missile systems during military parades,” experts said in their report on Monday.
Experts added that the country “announced preparation for the testing and production of new ballistic missile warheads and the development of tactical nuclear weapons … and upgraded its ballistic missile infrastructure.”
In this photo provided by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is attending a meeting of the Central Committee of the Korean Labor Party in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Monday, February 8, 2021. ( Korean Central News Agency / Korea News Service via AP)
They also recommend that the Security Council impose sanctions on four North Korean men, including Choe Song Chol, Im Song Sun, Pak Hwa Song and Hwang Kil Su.
The Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea since its first nuclear test in 2006, which restricted exports and imports in an effort to pressure the country to end its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. However, North Korea continued to face sanctions and carry out its weapons development and ‘malicious cyber activities’.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The country’s threat to the United States increased in 2017 following tests that included an explosion of a suspected thermonuclear nuclear warhead and flight tests showing that it could reach intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) deep into the U.S. continent.
President Trump then met with Kim in 2018 – and became the first U.S. president to walk in North Korea in more than 20 years – in an effort to improve diplomatic ties.
However, these efforts were hampered when the US rejected North Korea’s demands for major sanctions easing in exchange for a piece-by-piece agreement that would partially surrender its nuclear weapons capabilities.
A handout photo taken by Dong-A Ilbo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) separating South and North Korea on June 30, 2019 in Panmunjom, South -Korea, supplied. (Handout photo by Dong-A Ilbo via Getty Images / Getty Images)
With the diplomatic efforts to a stalemate, Kim must start all over again with President Joe Biden, who previously called him a “thug” and criticized Trump’s tactics of negotiations with the North Korean leader.
The country hit its economy in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced its borders to close, which experts say severely restricted the legal and illegal transfer of goods and movement of people.
NORTH KOREA EXAMINATION WHAT IT CALLS ‘WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL WEAPON
At a North Korean political conference, Kim sharply criticized his government’s economic agencies for unspecified passivity and ‘self-protective tendencies’, the North State media reported on Tuesday.
His remarks followed a ruling party congress last month, where he called for greater state control over the economy, while also promising to continue overall efforts to advance his nuclear program, which North Korea used as a deterrent to the US considered and thus an assurance of the Kim dynasty’s survival.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.