G7 Whistles at Pyongyang While Kim's Coders Keep Cashing Out 🧭

Group of Seven leaders meeting in Évian-les-Bains, France have renewed their call for joint action against North Korean cryptocurrency thefts, expressing "deep concern" over the regime's nuclear and ballistic missile programs and the digital assets funding them. The summit statement did not specify concrete measures such as exchange screening, sanctions, or actions against mixing services frequently discussed in connection with North Korean laundering. A similar call followed the G7's June 2025 summit in Canada, when the group's chair urged members to jointly address "DPRK cryptocurrency thefts" tied to weapons development.

North Korean hackers stole at least $2 billion in crypto in 2025, according to Chainalysis, pushing the all-time total attributed to DPRK-affiliated actors to at least $6.75 billion. The blockchain analytics firm said the hackers generated larger returns last year despite carrying out fewer confirmed attacks, often by embedding information technology workers inside crypto companies or impersonating recruiters and investors to obtain access to internal systems.

The renewed warning lands amid a series of high-profile exploits with suspected links to North Korean actors, including the roughly $285 million Drift Protocol exploit in April and the $36 million Humanity Protocol breach in June. On May 15, CrowdStrike described North Korean actors as the largest threat group targeting crypto users by value stolen, adding that proceeds were "almost certainly laundered to fund the regime's military programs." The United Nations and security researchers have previously linked North Korean crypto thefts to funding for the country's weapons programs.

North Korea has rejected the allegations. In a May 3 statement published by state news agency KCNA, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson accused the United States of spreading false information and described claims of a North Korean cyber threat as politically motivated "slander."