The U.S. Justice Department said Thursday it obtained court authorization to seize or restrain more than $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen from Binance, part of more than $2.7 billion frozen after an Oct. 29 theft it attributed to North Korea.

In a press release, the department said members of the North Korean military, referred to by the FBI as TraderTraitor, stole more than $6 billion worth of virtual assets from the Binance exchange on or about Oct. 29.

It said National Security Division, Criminal Division, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and law enforcement partners worked with virtual asset service providers to interdict the stolen assets, and that tracing, freezing, seizure, and forfeiture efforts remain ongoing.

Techmeme, summarizing a Bloomberg report by Myles Miller, put the freeze at $2.7 billion and named Tether and Circle as the firms that froze those funds; the department’s own release did not name those companies¹.

Techmeme also described the Binance theft as a $6.3 billion hack; the Justice Department used “more than $6 billion”¹.

The same announcement covered a separate FaceStealer social-engineering campaign that the department said used recorded videos and deepfakes and has resulted in the theft of more than $400 million in cryptocurrency.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General M. Scott Proctor said the announcement shows the United States will “fight back against that corrupt regime’s effort to profit through cybercrime,” attributing North Korea’s cryptocurrency theft to funding of its government and weapons program.

How much of the frozen amount beyond the court-authorized $1.2 billion will be seized, and whether any recovered assets will be returned to Binance or its customers, were not specified in the department’s release.