North Korea denies FBI claim it stole $6bn in crypto from Binance
North Korea has rejected an FBI statement blaming it for the theft of more than $6bn in crypto assets from Binance, with Kim Yo Jong, director of the ruling party, calling the accusation proof of Washington's "hostile policy" towards Pyongyang.
In remarks carried by the official KCNA agency, Kim, the influential sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said the US had repeatedly been told that abandoning its hostile stance is "a fundamental premise and the key to resolving all problems" concerning the country, known officially as the DPRK. "It is our clear position that we have no need to sit face to face with such untrustworthy and hostile people who refuse to abandon their confrontation policy," she said.
She also criticised joint US-South Korea military exercises, demands for denuclearisation and a US State Department report on global human trafficking that includes North Korea, saying Pyongyang does not know how else to respond to the "hostile signals" Washington keeps sending.
The refusal to engage comes amid speculation about a possible summit between President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un later this month. Trump said in August that he wanted to meet the North Korean leader this year; Pyongyang had not responded to the offer. A senior South Korean official told reporters last week that Seoul sees little chance of a Pyongyang-Washington summit for now.
The FBI's attribution, as described by Kim, would make the Binance theft one of the largest crypto losses ever tied to a state actor, and it lands as Washington and Pyongyang weigh a return to leader-level talks.
What it means for Pakistan: The allegation puts a state actor at the centre of a multi-billion-dollar exchange theft, the kind of incident Pakistani users of global crypto platforms are exposed to whenever funds leave self-custody for a centralised venue. It also sharpens the case Pakistan's regulators have been building: the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority and the State Bank have stressed custody, KYC and AML controls as preconditions for licensed virtual asset activity, and a theft of this size tied to a sanctioned state is the scenario those rules are written for. For Pakistani investors, the practical lesson is unchanged: exchange-level losses are rarely made whole, and holdings on offshore platforms sit outside any local recourse.
