Latest in North Korea
A steady rush into retail crypto activity is occurring without a check of the regulatory blindspots. Many illicit actors will likely try to spend their ill-gotten crypto on goods and services online rather than cashing out into regular currency.
Foreign intelligence services aren’t simply stealing valuable assets to help their businesses—they’re engaging in an assortment of activities to ensure their countries dominate economically.
On Feb. 17, the Department of Justice released a newly unsealed indictment that charges three North Korean cyber operatives in connection with an alleged scheme to steal currency and commit cyberattacks on banks and businesses around the world.
This episode’s interview with Dr. Peter Pry of the EMP Commission raises an awkward question: Is it possible that North Korea has already developed nuclear weapons that could cause the deaths of hundreds of millions of Americans by permanently frying the entire electrical infrastructure with a single high-altitude blast? And if he doesn’t, could the sun accomplish pretty much the same thing? The common factor in both scenarios is EMP—electro-magnetic pulse. And we explore the problem in detail, from the capabilities of adversaries to the controversy that has pitted Dr.
The Department of Justice has charged three foreign nationals with conspiracy to violate sanctions regulations against North Korea with bank fraud, in addition to conspiracy to launder funds.
In a federal indictment unsealed Thursday, May 28, the Justice Department has charged 28 North Korean and 5 Chinese citizens with acting as agents of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank and facilitating over $2.5 billion in illegal payments for the country’s nuclear weapons program. Working for the Foreign Trade Bank, the agents allegedly established more than 250 front companies to mask payments which transited through the U.S. financial system.
Cryptocurrency obfuscation tools and techniques are likely to play a growing role in financing threats to U.S. national security.
On Jan. 28, the House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on U.S. defense policy in the Korean peninsula that examined the administration’s efforts to strengthen the U.S. alliance with South Korea while deterring and securing the denuclearization of the countries’ shared foe in the north.
Editor’s Note: Iran and North Korea have posed thorny problems for multiple U.S. administrations. The Trump administration, however, is trying a new tack, hoping to transform the regimes and eschewing intermediate steps. Robert Litwak of the Wilson Center calls for a more transactional approach, working incrementally to decrease the danger these rogue regimes pose rather than trying, and probably failing, to fundamentally transform them.
Daniel Byman
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Editor’s Note: The Trump administration has made North Korea one of its strategic priorities, but the Pyongyang regime is inscrutable, making it difficult to determine the best approach. Brookings senior fellow Jung Pak dissects Kim Jong Un's annual New Year's speech and argues that the North Korean leader is confident and trying to set the United States up for responsibility should relations go further awry.
Daniel Byman
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