Serious question, if the United States decided to unilaterally cut North Korea off from the Internet, how hard would that be to do? Could we just knock out a few cables?<p>North Korea pretty much only uses the Internet for scams Or to make money in violation of sanctions. They certainly don’t allow their citizens to use it for anything else, and they don’t allow their citizens to leave the country because they would never come back.<p>Even if it were only temporary, suddenly cutting off the Internet to the country would expose all of those remote workers to the people who employ them and don’t realize they are employing North Koreans when they all disappear at once.<p>Is this just not logistically feasible? or are we just too afraid it would be unpalatable to our allies? I can’t be the first person who has thought of this.
This is impressive analysis, but have I overlooked the laundering part? Money laundering is providing an explanation about why it is clean, not hiding the reason that it might be dirty.
US/Canada 2024, $3 billion in fines by US regulators, <a href="https://rupakghose.substack.com/p/td-banks-aml-issues-and-fintechs" rel="nofollow">https://rupakghose.substack.com/p/td-banks-aml-issues-and-fi...</a><p><i>> DoJ investigation found.. [banking] business had been used to launder more than $650m between 2016 and 2021 from US fentanyl sales for Chinese crime groups and drug traffickers.</i><p>Canada 2018, <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33918115">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33918115</a><p><i>> An estimated $5.3 billion of laundered money into B.C. real estate in 2018 hiked housing prices 5 per cent, two special reports released Thursday by the provincial government show.</i><p>Australia 2015, <a href="https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/06/stop-money-laundering-so-our-kids-can-buy-homes/" rel="nofollow">https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/06/stop-money-launderi...</a><p><i>> Credit Suisse estimates some $28 billion of Chinese money has been invested in the Australian housing market over the past six years</i>
So all the crypto went to paxful/noones, and was converted to fiat there. Should be pretty straightforward to subpoena them and get all data about their fiat accounts?
Question from my curious mind. How are the Metamask instances of specific device getting replaced by modified/malware-d version? How does that even work?
Our own banks commit 10x more fraud than that. See TD Bank money laundering case ongoing, could reach $4 billion in fines. Wells Fargo $3 billion in fines for fraudulent charges on fake accounts. JPMorgan Chase $1 bil settlement for UST and precious metal futures fraud.<p>And those are just the ones I can remember from the last few years.
Why these Lazarus geniuses didn't use XMR at all, huh?<p>I like it, that somebody thinks $4B is a lot. If FIAT CASH was trackable as crypto, your head would explode.
I'd imagine it's pretty easy, too. You've already got the assets in a poorly-accountable and liquid state - now all you need is a chump to unload the bag on. Almost makes you wonder how many cryptocurrency influencers are in the pocket of sanctioned nations...