North Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) has identified a North Korean group running illegal cyber-casinos in association with South Korean criminal organizations.
According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, the Kyonghung Information Technology Exchange Company, affiliated with the Workers’ Party bureau in charge of slush funds for dictator Kim Jong-un, developed illicit iGaming sites and sold them to clients in South Korea. The South Korean clients allegedly resold the sites to third parties, generating several trillion won in profits.
The company sold the sites for $5,000 each and charged $3,000 to operate them. Workers were based in a clothing factory in Dandong, China, where they lived in dormitories. They reportedly faked their identification papers and stole the identities of Chinese software developers.
North Korean engineers then hacked into Korean companies to steal the personal information of more than 1,110 South Koreans, per the NIS.
“This is the first time that concrete evidence has been disclosed to the public that North Korea is deeply involved in cyber-gambling, which has recently become a serious social problem in South Korea,” the NIS said in a statement.
“Dandong emerged as a base for apparel production in China based on the manpower from North Korea, and North Korean IT organizations created to raise dollars blend in among the North Korean workers in the area to illegally earn foreign currencies,” the NIS said.
