The FBI has seized more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance, cutting into funds U.S. officials say North Korean hackers use to bankroll the regime's weapons program.

Federal agents announced Thursday that they had locked down a huge share of the digital coins taken from the world's largest crypto exchange last month, and the Justice Department said a court had cleared the government to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the frozen haul.

CBS News reported the recovery push after roughly $6.3 billion was taken from Binance in what officials describe as one of the largest crypto thefts on record. U.S. agencies and private firms together have already frozen more than $2.7 billion of those stolen funds.

The FBI has previously tied the Binance job to a North Korean hacking crew known as TraderTraitor. Officials say the regime leans on cyber theft to raise cash for its government and its banned weapons work. That charge sits at the center of Thursday's announcements from Washington.

Court order locks down the recovered coins

The Justice Department said it secured court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion of the frozen crypto. In these cases the government typically files a forfeiture claim with a judge, who then decides who has a lawful claim to the money.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli of the Central District of California put the stakes in plain terms in a Justice Department statement.

"Cryptocurrency unfortunately has become fertile ground for North Korea to defraud victims and fund its malign activities,"

Essayli added that the seizure proves America will keep fighting rogue states that profit from cybercrime.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro struck the same note, stressing speed and coordination across agencies.

"By springing into action at a moment's notice, we worked together to freeze this massive criminal fraud in its tracks. The North Korean regime may think they are sophisticated cyber criminals, but we have consistently met them head on, as we did here seizing more than $1.2 billion of their stolen assets."

Those words land against a familiar pattern. U.S. officials have long accused Pyongyang of treating crypto markets as a piggy bank for the regime, including programs that violate international limits on nuclear and missile work.

Binance hit dwarfs a second North Korea scheme

The Binance theft alone accounts for about $6.3 billion reported missing. Thursday's $1.2 billion seizure is a large slice of that pile, and the combined freeze with private-sector partners tops $2.7 billion. The rest of the trail remains under watch as forfeiture moves forward.

In a separate case, the FBI also blamed North Korea for a social-engineering campaign called FaceStealer. Officials say that scheme stole roughly $400 million worth of cryptocurrency over the past 18 months by hijacking popular messaging apps and using deepfake videos to trick targets.

FaceStealer is smaller than the Binance loss, yet it shows the same playbook: digital fraud aimed at turning stolen coins into hard support for a hostile government. Readers who follow bureau cyber work have seen other high-profile FBI cases surface lately, including a claimed massive FBI data breach that drew wide attention.

No arrests or charging documents were named in Thursday's account. The focus stayed on freezing the money and securing court power to keep it out of the thieves' hands.

Who runs the recovery effort

Essayli and Pirro spoke for the Justice Department side of the push. The FBI carried the seizure announcement. Both agencies framed the work as a direct answer to state-backed cybercrime rather than ordinary online theft.

That framing matters. When a foreign regime can drain an exchange on the scale of Binance, the dollars do not stay in some hacker's wallet. Officials say the cash feeds the same government that builds missiles and nuclear devices outside the rules the rest of the world tries to enforce.

Crypto markets move fast and often sit beyond easy reach of banks and traditional wire controls. That speed is exactly why hostile actors chase these coins. It is also why federal teams treat large freezes as urgent national-security work, not just financial cleanup. The Justice Department has also moved on internal accountability in other lanes, including DOJ charges against two ex-FBI officials in a separate congressional-probe case.

The Binance recovery still leaves open questions. The precise court and docket number were not listed. The split between government-held and private-sector frozen funds beyond the $1.2 billion authorization was not broken out. And the step-by-step method of the original Binance intrusion was not detailed beyond the earlier TraderTraitor attribution.

Forfeiture comes next

Once the government files its forfeiture claim, a judge will sort legitimate ownership. Victims and other claimants can step forward. Until then the seized coins stay locked under the court order the Justice Department described Thursday.

That process is slower than the theft itself. Crypto can vanish across borders in minutes. Clawing it back takes warrants, coordination with exchanges and private investigators, and the kind of rapid freeze Pirro described. The $2.7 billion combined freeze shows how much of the stolen pile was caught before it could be fully cashed out or laundered.

North Korea's record on this front is not new. U.S. officials have repeated the same accusation for years: cyber schemes pay for the regime's survival and its weapons. Thursday's numbers put fresh weight behind that charge. A single heist measured in the billions, a $1.2 billion federal seizure, and another $400 million FaceStealer tally over 18 months add up to a sustained campaign, not a one-off crime spree.

Other recent bureau stories have kept the FBI in the headlines as well, from an inquiry involving Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to earlier leadership cases. The crypto seizures stand apart because the target is a foreign regime's funding stream, not a domestic personnel fight.

Lawful markets and honest exchanges cannot function if a nuclear-armed dictatorship can treat them as an ATM. Taxpayers and ordinary investors end up covering the chaos when billions disappear and then have to be chased across the blockchain. The agencies that moved Thursday did the basic job government is supposed to do: follow the money, freeze it, and put a court between the thieves and the cash.

Related bureau controversies continue on other tracks, including cases against former FBI task force leaders, but the Binance recovery is a concrete win on the foreign-threat side of the ledger.

When rogue states steal by the billion to fund banned weapons, seizing the loot is not optional. It is the bare minimum of serious law enforcement.