The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint on Thursday seeking the forfeiture of over $7.74 million in cryptocurrency that North Korean IT workers allegedly laundered to fund the country’s weapons programs while evading American sanctions.

The civil forfeiture complaint targets funds connected to a broader scheme in which North Korean IT workers obtained illegal employment at U.S. and international companies using fraudulent identification documents, the department said in a press release on Thursday.

The case stems from an April 2023 indictment against Sim Hyon Sop, a U.S.-sanctionedrepresentative of North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, who allegedly coordinated illicit financial