Three cryptocurrency stories including North Korean hackers seeking to take bitcoin from the South Koreans, another Asian country banning ICOs and an alleged money launderer heading to Russia to face the beak.
Signs that used to sit outside the cafes of Dandong, China, promising people the sight of a beautiful North Korean woman if they entered their cafe are turning to nothing but a plume of smoke as tightening sanctions force neighbouring countries to send their North Korean employees back from whence they came.
So how do you react when the world closes in on you, applying a tourniquet to your industry so tight that you begin to panic?
You do what you can to survive.
Little Rocket Man and his people are doing just that.
A few weeks ago, news reports started to surface in the South Korean press that North Korean based hackers had attempted to steal from bitcoin exchanges in the country.
Representatives of the Republic of Korea’s National Police Agency (NPA) has ended speculation by admitting that 25 employees working in four different exchanges were the intended victims of ten separate ‘Spear Phishing,” attacks (an attack whereby someone impersonates someone else to try and con you into handing over your login details and other vital security information).
The attacks have been in play since July, way before Donald Trump increased his sarcastic Twitter attacks on the North Korean leader. The hackers, pretending to be security specialists, sent emails to the predetermined victims, with malware included as an attachment. The NPA also confirms that hackers also targeted smartphones.
None of the attacks were successful, and there was not a single data breach.
South Korea ICO Ban
The news came a mere days after the South Korean government banned Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) in the country. The move was made to protect South Korean citizens against an increased activity the government believes’s hard to police and open to corruption.
But the ban hasn’t had much of an effect on the trading power of bitcoin or ether. On Friday, bitcoin traded at $4,353, while ether’s value was $291. Monday morning bitcoin was up $4,397, and ether was also up to $298.
China also banned ICOs at the beginning of September calling them financial scams and pyramid schemes.
Bitcoin Money Launderer Heading to Russia to Face The Beak
Has Vladimir Putin gone soft?
Fans of the hit TV show The Americans will know that during the Cold War the last place a Russian spy wanted to end up was back in the homeland, but that’s not the case for Alexander Vinnik.
Three months after The Northern District of California indicted Vinnik on charges of money laundering and drug trafficking, the Russian national has appeared in a Greek court asking to be extradited to Russia to face outstanding fraud charges.
It’s alleged that Vinnik was the mastermind of BTC-e, a bitcoin exchange formed six-years ago. The court heard how Vinnik allegedly cleaned $4 billion through the company on behalf of as many Godfathers and Sicarios you can think of during a six-year period.
The company closed after US officials raided the joint in July. BTC-e denies any relationship with Vinnik. The company remerged under the new name Wex in early September.
Ozark Season 2 now has a new way of cleaning money.
