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US wins authority over $1.2bn in Binance theft

US authorities say court approval covers more than $1.2 billion of crypto stolen from Binance, part of a wider effort to freeze funds and trace the theft.

Uruguay Can Editorial

US wins authority over $1.2bn in Binance theft

More than $2.7 billion of crypto stolen from Binance has been frozen by US authorities and private-sector partners. On Thursday, the Justice Department said it had court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of that total, according to its announcement on the Binance theft.

The distinction matters: the announcement does not say the government has completed forfeiture or that the funds have been returned to victims. The Associated Press reported the FBI seizure announcement, while the Justice Department describes the court action as authorization to seize or restrain assets. For you, that means the funds are subject to legal control while recovery efforts continue; the final ownership of any forfeited crypto remains unsettled.

The Justice Department says the theft happened on or about October 29, when members of the North Korean military—identified by the FBI as the group TraderTraitor—stole more than $6 billion in virtual assets from Binance. The FBI had previously attributed the attack to the group. The government says agencies worked with virtual asset service providers, or crypto businesses that hold or move assets, to freeze funds before they could move beyond law enforcement’s reach.

Tracing is still under way. The department says TraderTraitor actors continue to launder the stolen assets through crypto bridges, mixers and exchanges. Bridges move assets between blockchains, while mixers can obscure transaction trails. Last week, the FBI, Secret Service and IRS Criminal Investigation issued an alert urging crypto service providers to block transactions involving addresses used to launder the Binance funds, including assets derived from those addresses.

The $1.2 billion action was part of a broader Justice Department announcement that also covered the disruption of cloud infrastructure used in a separate North Korean social engineering campaign called FaceStealer. The department says that scheme stole more than $400 million in cryptocurrency over the past 18 months. It is separate from the Binance theft.

Sources