US seizes $1.2 billion in crypto stolen from Binance, FBI says

The FBI said Thursday it had seized more than $1.2 billion of cryptocurrency reported stolen last month from Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. The Justice Department said it obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the total, part of a combined government and private-sector effort that has frozen more than $2.7 billion of the stolen funds. Binance reported the theft as about $6.3 billion, the largest crypto heist in history. The FBI has attributed the theft to North Korea’s TraderTraitor hacking group.

The evidence trail rests on blockchain tracing, exchange cooperation and U.S. legal process. The source describes a forfeiture path: after seizure or restraint, the government typically files a claim with a judge, who determines legitimate claims to recovered funds. The FBI also blamed North Korea for a separate social-engineering scheme, FaceStealer, that officials say stole $400 million in cryptocurrency over 18 months using hijacked messaging apps and deepfake video recordings. The source does not detail independent technical confirmation of attribution.

This matters operationally because it shows large crypto thefts are not necessarily final losses when law enforcement can move quickly across exchanges, analytics firms and courts. The Binance case sits alongside North Korea-related campaigns described by U.S. officials, including missile tests framed as protest over hack claims. The pattern is not a single exploit but a procurement-like pipeline: social engineering, credential access, app hijacking, deepfakes, laundering and eventual tracing. Officials repeatedly accuse North Korea of using cyber schemes to fund regime and weapons programs.

The affected parties are Binance users, exchanges, crypto asset managers and governments that must decide who ultimately owns recovered tokens. A $1.2 billion seizure gives state actors a visible tool: legal restraint plus blockchain forensics can turn stolen digital assets into recoverable evidence and potential restitution. It also raises a harder question for platforms: whether the same tracing and freeze capabilities that saved billions are available across jurisdictions as laundered funds move.