TRM Talks: The North Korea Threat

Dr. Jung H. Pak is Deputy Assistant Secretary for Multilateral Affairs and Deputy SpecialRepresentative for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). Prior to arriving at State, she was a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she focused onKorean Peninsula issues, East Asia regional dynamics, and transnational threats. While at Brookings, she authored Becoming Kim Jong Un, which has been translated into multiple languages and draws from her deep knowledge and experience as an intelligence officer. Pak has held senior positions at the Central Intelligence Agency and served as the Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Korea at the National IntelligenceCouncil. Before her career in national security, Dr. Pak taught U.S. history at HunterCollege in New York City. She received her PhD from Columbia University and studied in South Korea as a Fulbright Scholar. Pak is a graduate of Colgate University, where she is Trustee Emerita and recipient of an honorary doctorate.

Dr. John Park is the Director of the Korea Project at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Centerfor Science and International Affairs. At Harvard University, he is an Associated Faculty Member of the Korea Institute, Faculty Member of the Committee on Regional Studies East Asia, and aFaculty Affiliate with the Project on Managing the Atom. He is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at theCenter for a New American Security. He also serves as a Senior Advisor at the University ofSouthern California’s Korean Studies Institute as well as the National Bureau of Asian Research.Previously, he served as a Stanton Foundation Faculty Fellow for nuclear security at MIT and a director at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, where he worked closely with U.S. andAsian officials to convene Northeast Asia Track 1.5 projects. Before academia, Dr. Park worked at Goldman Sachs and The Boston Consulting Group. His writings have appeared in The New YorkTimes, The Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times. Dr. Park received his Ph.D. from University of Cambridge, and completed his pre-doctoral and post-doctoral training at the Harvard KennedySchool’s Belfer Center.

Nick Carlsen, Senior Investigator, TRM Labs, is one of the world’s foremost experts on North Korea’s illicit financial networks and cryptocurrency-enabled cybercrime. A founding member of TRM’s Global Investigations team, he specializes in tracking DPRK-linked threat actors, de-anonymizing mixing services, and uncovering complex money laundering operations across the blockchain.

Before joining TRM, Nick spent 12 years as an intelligence analyst at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), where he played a pivotal role in the US government’s largest investigations and disruptions of North Korea’s trade-based money laundering networks. His work directly led to:

• The indictments of dozens of individuals operating global North Korean sanctions evasion schemes
• The seizure of tens of millions of dollars in illicit proceeds tied to North Korean financial operations
• The largest-ever non-bank financial settlement ($629 million)
• The first-ever extradition of a North Korean national to the United States, an unprecedented move that led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Malaysia

Nick’s insights into DPRK’s cryptocurrency thefts and cyber-enabled financial crimes have been widely recognized, with features on CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and other leading publications.His investigative excellence has earned him some of the highest honors in US intelligence and law enforcement, including two FBI Director’s Awards (2013, 2017), the FBI’s top recognition for investigative achievements; two FINCEN Director’s Awards (2018, 2020), for excellence in financial intelligence and illicit finance investigations, and two National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) Director’s Awards (2016), for contributions to US national security.At TRM Labs, Nick continues to lead efforts in tracking state-sponsored cyber threats, identifying illicit crypto flows, and protecting the global financial system from nation-state actors.