Justice Department wins court order over $1.2 billion in stolen Binance crypto
Technology
Thursday, November 12, 2026
- Updated Nov 12, 2026 19:43
The Justice Department said on Thursday it has court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the cryptocurrency stolen from Binance on October 29, part of more than $2.7 billion frozen so far, and that it seized the cloud infrastructure behind North Korea’s FaceStealer video-call scheme.
Why it matters: The orders move the largest crypto theft on record from a freeze into court-supervised seizure, and the FaceStealer takedown closes a channel that US officials say North Korea used to reach crypto workers and open-source developers.
Data as of US Department of Justice press release of November 12, 2026, read in full; all figures are the department’s own. The $1.2 billion under court authorization is part of the $2.7 billion frozen total, not an additional amount. Developing item.
The Justice Department said on Thursday that it has obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the cryptocurrency stolen from Binance on or about October 29, which the FBI attributes to North Korean military actors it calls TraderTraitor. United States government and private-sector efforts have frozen more than $2.7 billion of the more than $6 billion taken, and tracing and forfeiture work is continuing while the actors move the assets through bridges, mixers and exchanges.
In a separate action, the department said it seized cloud-based infrastructure used in FaceStealer, a scheme in which North Korean hackers used recorded webcam video and deepfakes of trusted contacts in fake video meetings, then installed malware through a bogus audio fix. The scheme took more than $400 million over 18 months, the FBI seized more than 900 webcam videos of victims under a federal warrant, and officials said the targets have widened from crypto workers to open-source software developers whose repository access could be used for supply-chain attacks.
Sources
- Justice Department Announces Actions to Disrupt North Korea’s Massive Theft of Cryptocurrency - US Department of Justice - 2026-11-12
- DOJ takes aim at $1.2B in Binance loot as FBI disrupts North Korean scam - The Register - 2026-11-12