How Kim Jong Un Amassed a $22 Billion Windfall

Now, Kat, you and your team have looked into this economic windfall for North Korea in the past several years. How much money are we actually talking about? And wonder if you can put that into context for us. >> So, we have crunched the data on this, and it could be as much as 22 billion US dollars that Kim has earned in the last 4 years. Now, just for context, the North Korean economy was about 34 billion in 20 2025, right? So, it's a huge amount of money, and it's four times the amount of money that Kim had earned in the preceding 4 years from that. So, it's been a record-breaking windfall for North Korea, and it's come from multiple sources. The most important source is Russia, is the arms sales to Russia, which have make up the the bulk of this this earnings. However, Kim also has a huge cyber program. He's got an elite team of crypto hackers, of hackers who have are now responsible for up to 70% of global crypto thefts. So, that's just bringing in billions, literally 2 billion last year, they estimate they estimate say, of effectively free money for the for the North Korean regime. And they also have a kind of rejuvenated relationship with Beijing, with China, which has always been their traditional ally and their, you know, their longest longest serving friend. A relationship that both sides emphasize was forged during the Korean War in the 1950s. And that relationship has really flourished in recent years because, largely because of growing tensions between Beijing and Washington.