Justiça americana apreende US$ 1,2 bilhão e Investiga golpe de deepfakes

O Departamento de Justiça dos Estados Unidos tracingou mais de US$ 400 milhões em roubo de criptoativos a uma campanha norte-coreana conhecida como FaceStealer. De acordo com Decrypt, TronWeekly e Protos, o esquema combina Intelligence artificial, deepfakes de contatos confiáveis, chamadas de vídeo e persuade cryptographic workers to install malware. The FBI describes the method as relying on recorded footage and AI-generated likenesses to make the fraudulent requests appear legitimate.

A investigação também alcançou um caso distinto envolvendo a Binance. Decrypt, Protos e The Block report that the DOJ is moving to seize US$ 1.2 billion connected to the exchange hack attributed to North Korea. The Block says the agency received court approval for the seizure and identifies the operation as TraderTraitor. Thus, the reported US$ 1.2 billion concerns the Binance-related action, while the FaceStealer losses are described as exceeding US$ 400 million.

The cross-outlet corroboration is broad on the central facts: the alleged perpetrator is North Korean, the method involves social engineering through video calls and malware, and the FaceStealer campaign is associated with more than US$ 400 million. The difference is primarily procedural and presentational. Decrypt frames the Binance action as a planned seizure, while The Block reports judicial approval; Protos emphasizes that the US also claimed the US$ 400 million FaceStealer theft. The Block is the only outlet in the supplied group that names TraderTraitor.

The use of prerecorded material and AI deepfakes gives the scheme a human-facing layer. Instead of relying only on technical intrusion, the operators reportedly impersonate trusted contacts during a video call and encourage crypto professionals to install malware. That mechanism directly affects workers who handle digital assets and could make conventional identity checks less reliable when visual confirmation is combined with an apparently familiar caller.

The broader crypto market provided a weak backdrop for the announcement. Total market capitalization stood at US$ 2.29 trillion, while Bitcoin fell 4.20% over the preceding 24 hours and the overall market was broadly lower. The Fear & Greed index was at 13, classified as Extreme Fear. No specific coin from the market list is named in connection with the FaceStealer or Binance cases, so the figures provide sector context rather than linking either enforcement action to a particular asset.

The immediate significance is the scale of the alleged losses and the addition of a court-backed seizure to the account of the North Korean-linked activity. The divergent descriptions of the Binance measure mean that the procedural status differs across reports, but all three outlets citing the amount place it at US$ 1.2 billion. For the FaceStealer operation, the consistent estimate is more than US$ 400 million. What remains relevant to monitor is the progress of the legal process and whether further deepfake-enabled campaigns are identified by US authorities.