The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has sanctioned six individuals and two entities for their roles in facilitating North Korean IT worker schemes, which generated nearly $800 million in 2024 for the regime’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
The action targets operatives based in North Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Spain who enabled fraudulent remote employment at U.S. companies and subsequent money laundering through cryptocurrency, according to the Treasury’s Thursday statement.
Among the designated facilitators, Nguyen Quang Viet, CEO of Vietnam-based Quangvietdnbg International Services Company, converted approximately $2.5 million into crypto for North Koreans between mid-2023 and mid-2025, including illicit earnings from IT workers associated with sanctioned entity Amnokgang Technology Development Company, per the statement.
Hoang Van Nguyen, a Vietnamese national, was designated for assisting previously sanctioned DPRK nuclear procurement facilitator Kim Se Un in opening bank accounts and enabling crypto transactions, including facilitating a counterfeit cigarette deal worth more than $200,000 on Kim’s behalf in 2022, OFAC said.
The agency also added multiple crypto addresses to its “specially designated nationals list” across several blockchain networks, according to a separate statement.
Amnokgang Technology Development Company received designations for three Ethereum addresses and four TRON addresses. Yun Song Guk, a DPRK national who led a group of North Korean IT workers operating out of Boten, Laos, since at least 2023, was designated along with two Ethereum addresses. Hoang Minh Quang, who coordinated more than $70,000 in financial transactions with Yun, was designated with one bitcoin address.
As a result of the action, all property and interests in property of the these individuals in the U.S. are blocked and must be reported to OFAC, with violations carrying potential civil or criminal penalties, per the statement.
The enforcement action comes as North Korea’s cyber operations reached record levels. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said DPRK-linked hackers stole more than $2.17 billion in cryptocurrency during the first half of 2025, surpassing the total stolen in all of 2024. The largest incident was the Feb. 21 breach of Bybit, where attackers siphoned nearly $1.5 billion worth of Ethereum.
© 2026 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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