The Lazarus Heist: Season 2, with Jean Lee and Geoff White
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the past decade, North Korea has taken on an exceptional global role: a sovereign state believed to be at the head of an unprecedented international criminal network—one that is particularly active in cyberspace, where the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group is believed to have been responsible for several of the largest and most audacious incidents of hacking, ransomware, and outright theft of the modern era.
Journalists Jean Lee and Geoff White have been documenting the Lazarus Group’s activities for the BBC. The second season of their podcast, “The Lazarus Heist,” is now available. Lawfare Senior Editor Scott R. Anderson sat down with them to discuss how this second season builds on the first, what the Lazarus Group has been up to, and what it all tells us about North Korea’s international position. They also gave us permission to share a preview for you, which plays after the discussion.
Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the LawFair podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:14.0 | That's patreon.com slash law fair. |
| 0:18.0 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, |
| 0:22.0 | rational security, chatter, law fair no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:29.0 | What they want to do is transfer the money out from bank account to bank accounts, |
| 0:37.0 | taking it from the multi-banks accounts and sticking it in another account. |
| 0:41.0 | For that, they need bank accounts. They need laundering accounts. |
| 0:45.0 | They can wash this money through. They go back to big boss and say, hey, can you help? |
| 0:49.0 | And big boss says, well, nobody I know a man who can. |
| 0:51.0 | And that man is Hushpuppey, who turns out to be an Instagram influencer |
| 0:57.0 | with something like 2.3 million followers who's in Dubai. |
| 1:01.0 | And by day is doing what influencers do, eating in nice restaurants and wearing nice trainers. |
| 1:05.0 | But by night is carrying out various money laundering activities, |
| 1:09.0 | including it then emerges for the North Koreans. |
| 1:13.0 | And that leads you to Hushpuppey. |
| 1:15.0 | So these fascinating characters viscose back to what Jean said, |
| 1:17.0 | the North Koreans are looking around the world for accomplices and people to work with. |
| 1:21.0 | And frankly, they're finding some really weird people. |
| 1:23.0 | But weird, but useful people, because they do help them steal quite a lot of money. |
| 1:27.0 | I'm Scott R. Anderson, and this is the Lawfare Podcast for April 21, 2023. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Lawfare Institute, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Lawfare Institute and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.