How North Korea amassed $22 billion despite sanctions

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un has more cash at his disposal than at any point during his 15 years in power.

His family-run dictatorship raked in as much as $22 billion in foreign revenue from 2022 to 2025, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis of government trade figures and intelligence, as well as external research on key sources of income generation.

That historic haul is nearly quadruple the amount amassed in the previous four-year period, which came immediately after the U.S. convinced China and Russia to sign off on United Nations sanctions aimed at depriving Kim of hard currency to advance his nuclear program. Since those restrictions were imposed, Kim has still managed to strengthen his nuclear deterrent, boost ties with key diplomatic partners and grow his sources of revenue.

Kim has done it all while eschewing the billions of dollars in foreign aid that helped sustain his father and grandfather — the only other men to have ruled North Korea. Pyongyang’s skyline is being transformed by a construction spree, the capital’s once-empty streets are teeming with privately owned Chinese vehicles and Kim has been showing off more sophisticated weapons, including two modern warships.

“North Korea is in a stronger position than at any point in the last 35 years,” said Andrei Lankov, a specialist in Korean studies and director of consultancy Korea Risk Group. Cash from selling arms to Russia has been like “winning the lottery,” he added, while Chinese President Xi Jinping’s renewed support is equivalent to a reliable “pension.”

North Korea doesn’t report economic data. Along with its partners, Kim’s government takes steps to obfuscate illegal trade, meaning the revenue figures are estimates which may under or overestimate the gains. Many of the proceeds remain outside North Korea’s borders as Kim is blocked from the international banking system, while other payments are believed to be made in goods and technology transfers.

Either way, the numbers paint a stark picture of a regime that’s moved beyond small-time sanctions evasion — such as currency forgery and tobacco smuggling — to embrace far more lucrative endeavors. The result is a richer North Korea with the potential to pose a much larger threat to the world.

Kim’s economic boom marks a dramatic turnaround. Just seven years ago, the North Korean leader left a high-profile summit in Hanoi with President Trump humiliated after failing to secure a deal to ease sweeping U.N. restrictions imposed to crush his nuclear program.

The years that followed brought more pain. A devastating harvest triggered a domestic hunger crisis, while a self-imposed COVID-19 border lockdown cut off trade with North Korea’s main partner, China, deepening Kim’s diplomatic isolation. During a national address in 2020, the supreme leader shed tears while issuing a rare apology for failing to better navigate such economic struggles.

The turning point came in 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin stunned the world by invading Ukraine — offering Kim an unlikely lifeline.

As Moscow burned through munitions, it turned to Pyongyang for a rare source of Soviet-era artillery. North Korea’s domestic stockpiles suddenly became a valuable resource that Kim was able to convert into cash, food aid and advanced military technology.

By the end of 2025, North Korea had provided as much as 50% of Russia’s needs for frequently used 122 mm and 152 mm ammunition, according to Ukrainian intelligence estimates. Kim backed up his supply of shells with soldiers, deploying between 16,000 and 22,000 troops in return for some $2,000 per month each, according to South Korean estimates and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Thousands of those men have been killed on the battlefield, including many who committed suicide rather than face capture — with North Korea earning additional payouts for each death.

“North Korea-Russia military cooperation is no longer merely a diplomatic or security issue,” said South Korean opposition lawmaker Kang Daesik, who sits on the parliamentary defense committee and is briefed by the country’s spy agency on Pyongyang’s involvement in Russia’s war in Ukraine. “It has become a key source of income supporting the North Korean economy.”

The Bank of Korea estimates its neighbor’s economy grew 3.5% in 2025. That marked the country’s third straight annual expansion, although growth was slightly weaker than in 2024, when North Korea clocked its strongest performance since sanctions were tightened.

China appears to have taken notice, after years of cooling relations with Pyongyang over its deepening ties to Moscow. At a military parade in Beijing in September, Kim stood alongside Xi and Putin in a display of friendship between the nuclear-armed powers. Kim’s teenage daughter, Ju Ae, joined him for the pomp and pageantry, signaling she’s likely his successor.

Kim’s improved fortunes appear to be trickling down to at least some parts of the country, which remains one of the world’s most impoverished.

Trade with China soared in June to its highest level since sanctions, with North Koreans importing $1.2 million of sports and leisure goods alone. Ping pong balls, water skis, video games and sports equipment like treadmills were all brought over — luxury items likely curbed by the U.N. sanctions. New homes are rising across the country on a monthly basis, according to state media reports.

North Koreans in the capital are now able to use digital apps — on a ring-fenced domestic intranet — to buy food or order taxis, said Rowan Beard of Young Pioneer Tours, who has visited Pyongyang multiple times since 2012. “The increase in smartphone use has been striking,” he said.

North Korea has “never looked this strong,” said Joanna Hosaniak, deputy director general at the Seoul-based Citizens’ Alliance for North Korean Human Rights, who has researched the country for two decades. One key metric she highlighted was a glut of ships observed at Nampho port, the country’s main maritime gateway.

“Even in 2016 when there was a record of coal exports for North Korea — 22 million tons — not as many ships were as present as there are right now,” she said.

Kim has plowed the influx of capital into a breakneck nuclear build-up that’s put him on track to rival France’s stockpile in the next decade. North Korea has repeatedly said such weapons protect the nation against any attack by the U.S., citing Iraq, Libya and others as cautionary tales.

North Korea’s rulers have traditionally prioritized nuclear development, leaving its conventional forces stuck at a technological level dating back to the Soviet era. That appears to be changing too.

The country has unveiled two 5,000-ton destroyers — its largest warships ever — over the past two years, indicating a significant leap hard to imagine a few years ago. At least one of those vessels is armed with what appears to be the Russian Pantsir-M air defense system, worth around $20 million and considered more advanced than any short-range system known to be domestically produced.

Russian technology transfers have enabled North Korea to “compress its weapon development timelines,” an official with the United States Forces Korea, which oversees U.S. troops stationed in the south, said in response to written questions.

Russia and North Korea, which share an 11-mile land border, have also been producing strike UAVs, which could “create additional long-term risks for security in the region,” said Vladyslav Vlasiuk, sanctions envoy for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Ballistic missiles from Pyongyang used in the battlefield are “not simple copies of the Russian Iskander complex,” added Vlasiuk. “North Korea significantly improved the design and created its own modifications with characteristic technical features.”

That opens the door to Kim finding another revenue stream: weapons customers beyond Moscow.

North Korea’s economic fortunes hinge heavily on Russia’s appetite for war, but that’s not its sole source of growing revenue.

Over the past decade, Kim has assembled the world’s most prolific army of crypto thieves, helping to diversify his earnings. Hacking groups tied to Pyongyang now account for more than 70% of global cryptocurrency thefts — up from roughly 30% in 2017, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

The stolen funds are mostly laundered by Chinese organized crime units that take a cut in return for clean offshore bank accounts denominated in yuan or dollars, said Nick Carlsen, a senior investigator with TRM Labs.

“It’s absurd to think North Korea now has access to that much money,” he said, suggesting the U.S. should consider allowing modern-day bounty hunting to cut down on crypto heists.

Kim also appears to be networking more to reduce his diplomatic dependence on Russia, with dignitaries from Singapore, Indonesia, Belarus and Vietnam all visiting Pyongyang over the past year.

Once viewed by the Western world as the erratic dictator of a hermit country, Kim is emerging as a resilient leader of a growing nuclear power.

North Korea no longer has any urgent need to negotiate with the U.S. or South Korea, especially on its prized nuclear weapons, said Jenny Town, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and a prominent North Korea watcher.

“Pyongyang has proven its ability to adapt to persistent sanctions,” she said. “And as international law and norms are eroding, it has found camaraderie in its resistance.”

Barton, Choi, Lee and Farrar write for Bloomberg.