The $1 Billion Bank Heist Stopped by a Typo

North Korea Almost Robbed a Central Bank of $1 Billion. One Word Stopped It. ЗАПАСНОЕ НАЗВАНИЕ A Typo, a Street Name and a Broken Printer: The Bangladesh Bank Heist ОПИСАНИЕ On 4 February 2016, 35 payment orders worth $951 million left Bangladesh Bank's account at the New York Fed in the bank's own name. The printer that would have shown them had gone silent. $850 million was held because the word 'Jupiter' in a Manila address matched a sanctioned Iranian ship; $20 million came back because 'Foundation' was spelled 'Fandation'; $81 million went through and vanished into Manila's casinos. Two and a half years later the FBI named the thieves: not a gang, but a unit of North Korea's military intelligence, the same group behind the Sony Pictures attack and WannaCry. Built from the Justice Department's 2018 complaint and 2021 indictment, Reuters' reconstruction of the Fed's weekend, BAE Systems' malware analysis, the Philippine Senate hearings and the Makati court's verdict. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open: the printer 0:48 The Printer 2:36 Two Words 4:17 Jupiter Street 6:13 The Blame 8:06 The Army 11:03 The Bill 12:29 The Next Heist Sources: • U.S. Department of Justice, press release 18-1452, 6 September 2018 — complaint against Park Jin Hyok; Lazarus Group, Chosun Expo, Sony, Bangladesh Bank, WannaCry • U.S. Department of Justice, press release 21-154, 17 February 2021 — indictment of Jon Chang Hyok, Kim Il and Park Jin Hyok; Reconnaissance General Bureau; $1.3 billion • Reuters, special report 'How the New York Fed fumbled over the Bangladesh Bank heist', 2016 — the 35 orders, 'Jupiter', the printer, the weekend emails • Reuters, 10 March 2016 — the 'Fandation' typo and the reversed $20 million • BAE Systems Threat Research, 'Two bytes to $951M', 25 April 2016 — the malware that patched SWIFT software and rewrote the printer output • Federal Reserve Bank of New York, statements of 9–11 March and 16 August 2016 • SWIFT, customer notice, 25 April 2016 • Philippine Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearings, March–April 2016 (Rappler, GMA News, Philstar) — the four accounts, Philrem, the casinos, Kim Wong's testimony • Philstar, 5 August 2016 — the record ₱1 billion fine on RCBC • Fortune / Reuters, 24 November 2016 — $15.25 million returned to Bangladesh • Philstar, 10 January 2019 and 21 April 2023 — Deguito convicted on eight counts; conviction affirmed • BusinessWorld, Inquirer, Justia — Bangladesh Bank v. RCBC, New York, 2019–2024 • BBC, 'The Lazarus Heist', 2021 — the job-application email of January 2015 • Al Jazeera, 15 March 2016 — governor Atiur Rahman resigns • UN Panel of Experts report, August 2019 (CBS News) — up to $2 billion stolen by DPRK cyber operations • FBI / CoinDesk, 14 April 2022 — Ronin bridge theft attributed to Lazarus; Chainalysis, 19 December 2024; FBI IC3 PSA, 26 February 2025 — Bybit Narration is AI-generated (ElevenLabs). On-screen documents and data cards are drawn from the case record, not photographs of the originals. 25 shots are AI-generated reconstructions of scenes, not footage of the real events. Footage: Pexels — Emrul Kausar Emon, Pixabay, Chiara Passarini, Vincuk Konan, Ivan Chumak, Pachon in Motion, LISTOS PARA RODAR | Productora, Yaroslav Shuraev, Ricky Esquivel, Nicola Narracci, K, Matthias Groeneveld, Rafael Minguet Delgado, Charlie Mounsey, Konsta Nurkkala, Roman Kaiuk🇺🇦, Rob Zohrab, Ron Lach, Shrijana Shrestha, Altaf Shah, Daniel's Richard, emirkhan bal, Artem Podrez, Michael Markhof, ROMAN ODINTSOV, Md Amir Umar, Imeel Bagdisar, MART PRODUCTION, SHVETS production, max laurell, Evgenij Mikhailov, Tima Miroshnichenko, Samuel Benjamin Hernandez Lopez, Krypto Trekker, Lees Is More Creative, Pavel Danilyuk, Petkevich Evgeniy, Werner Pfennig, Media Hopper Studio, Caleb Oquendo, Everett Bumstead, Kowsar Ahmed, Cheng, StefWithAnF, Steve B, cottonbro studio, Grind 4K videos, In Old News LLC, Kolupaiev, Onkar Mehta, Colors Motion Graphics, ArtHouse Studio, Rahul Pal, Dominik Gryzbon, Monstera Production, Engin Akyurt, Tom Schönmann, Teela Hudak, Florian Delée, Mikhail Nilov, Optical Chemist, LayG Traveller, Alireza Akhlaghi, Israyosoy S., Charles Parker, Eduardo Cano Photo Co., Rūdolfs Klintsons, Aghyad Najjar, Stan "Kenzo" K, Efrem Efre, Pressmaster, Heitor Azevedo. Music: "Penumbra", "The Way Out", "Classic Horror 3", "Drums of the Deep", "Impending Boom", "Heart of the Beast", "Loss", "Funeral March for Brass" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Sound effects (freesound.org): "Pop down impact_1(4lrs,mltprcssng).wav" by newlocknew, CC BY 4.0, freesound.org/s/553519 "typewriter_manual_typing.wav" by magedu, CC BY 4.0, freesound.org/s/277302 "Deep Cinematic Impact" by MeijstroAudio, CC BY 4.0, freesound.org/s/377303