The United States Department of the Treasury announced this Wednesday the adoption of sanctions against ten people and one organization, which it accuses of serving as support for information technology operations abroad whose revenues ended up strengthening North Korea’s weapons program.
According to Washington, this new battery of punitive measures is directed specifically against the "networks that enable these North Korean employees to work in legitimate businesses, including American companies, with false identities and fraudulent documents".
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has denounced that the "North Korean regime" continues "to keep taking advantage of American companies with fraudulent activities, which instrumentalize very sensitive data and then extort these businesses".
Among those sanctioned are two Russian citizens singled out for facilitating cryptocurrency movements on behalf of North Korean agents, in addition to eight North Korean nationals. The affected organization is the First Technical and Financial Development Center, under Pyongyang and with an operational presence on Russian territory.
A dozen states individually, together with the European Union, have issued a joint statement backing these sanctions, in which they "reaffirm their commitment to the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization" of North Korea and call on it to "abandon its illicit programs of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles".
The text also has the signature of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea and the United Kingdom.