DOJ seizes or restrains $1.2B of crypto stolen from Binance

The US Department of Justice said on November 12 that it has obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance. The department says US government and private-sector efforts have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the stolen funds in total.

Details

The figures come from the DOJ press release. The late-October Binance hack is attributed to the North Korean military unit TraderTraitor; we covered it when the FBI named the group. The Record puts the total theft at about $6.3 billion. Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva said the Criminal Division "quickly and efficiently" halted "about half of this historic breach." Bloomberg reports that stablecoin issuers joined the freeze effort.

The DOJ also announced the seizure of cloud infrastructure behind FaceStealer, a scheme that investigators say stole more than $400 million over 18 months. Attackers invited crypto workers and open-source developers to fake video calls, used recorded video and deepfakes, and pushed malware disguised as a fix for a "technical error." The FBI seized more than 900 webcam videos from victims. The FBI, Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation took part (The Record).

Investigators are still pursuing the rest; The Record reports the hackers are trying to launder funds through bridges, mixers and exchanges.

What this means for the market

Roughly a fifth of the stolen total now sits under court authorization, the first sizeable recovery since the hack. "Seize or restrain" does not mean the money has been returned: the final outcome depends on court proceedings. Binance has already fully covered user losses from its own funds.

For the live bitcoin price, see the daily brief. This is not investment advice.