Translated material
A North Korean IT company has been registered in Russia for the first time; it will be engaged in the “export of IT specialists” from the DPRK - NK News
A representative office of a company was registered in Vladivostok, which is allegedly associated with the North Korean Red Star Technology Exchange Company, the developer of the DPRK’s own operating system. NK News reports this.
The company is called Bulgunbyol Technology Trading Company (translated from Korean as “Red Star”), and in the Russian SPARK register it is listed as “Pulnpel Technical Foreign Trade Company”. The office officially opened on September 24 with the support of the DPRK Chamber of Commerce and Industry. According to registration documents, the company is located at 42 Bosphorus Street, its director is Kim Cheol-yong, and there are five foreign employees on staff. The declared activity is “market research and public opinion research.”
This is the first North Korean company registered in Russia in 2025, despite UN sanctions prohibiting North Korean citizens from earning money abroad. Cybersecurity expert Junaid Ali told NK News that the Vladivostok office is unlikely to be intended to distribute the Red Star operating system, which is used mainly within North Korea, but rather to “export IT specialists.”
In August 2024, another North Korean company, Kumryun Trading Corporation, was already opening a branch in Vladivostok, which was blacklisted by the UN due to connections with the Mining Development and Trading Corporation, the main arms dealer of the DPRK and an exporter of equipment for ballistic missiles. NK News notes that North Korean commercial activity in the Russian Far East continues to quietly expand, often under the guise of technology or trading companies.
Earlier it became known that North Korean hackers have stolen more than $2 billion in cryptocurrency since the beginning of 2025 - three times more than in the entire last year. This is stated in the report of the analytical group Elliptic. This is a record amount stolen by government-linked hackers.