Odaily to Odaily, the South Korean Supreme Court has sentenced an employee of a cryptocurrency exchange to four years in prison and banned him from working in the financial industry for four years for accepting Bitcoin funds from North Korea and plotting to induce South Korean military officers to sell military secrets.
The court found that North Korean hackers paid approximately $487,000 in Bitcoin to employees of the trading platform to "recruit" active-duty South Korean military officers; the army captain involved received approximately $33,500 in Bitcoin. The judge noted that the defendants were aware that their actions involved a hostile nation, that their actions could endanger national security, and that they were motivated by personal economic gain.
The captain had previously been sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $35,000 for violating the Military Secrets Protection Act, while the trading platform employees were convicted of violating the National Security Act.
The case revealed that the individuals involved contacted military officers through Telegram chat rooms and provided them with hidden cameras disguised as watches and USB hacking devices in an attempt to steal login information from the ROK-US joint command and control system.
