North Korea’s £17M Crypto Heist Topples UK Firm—Here’s How They Did It
Another day, another crypto hack—except this one’s got Pyongyang’s fingerprints all over it. North Korean hackers just pulled off a £17 million digital heist, and the fallout vaporized a British firm. Who needs nukes when you’ve got ransomware?
The breach exposes crypto’s dirty secret: decentralized doesn’t mean bulletproof. While TradFi gatekeepers clutch their pearls, cybercriminals are bypassing KYC with keystrokes. The UK firm? Collateral damage in a financial cold war.
Here’s the kicker: that £17 million could’ve bought a lot of missile fuel—or a few Lambos for the regime’s elite. Either way, the ‘hermit kingdom’ just schooled Wall Street on 21st-century bank robbery. Maybe next time, they’ll short the company first—old habits die hard.
Lazarus Group and Laundering Tactics
The UK Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) cited the North Korean cybergang as the perpetrators, noting that the stolen funds were siphoned through both the Bitcoin and ethereum networks. Although the agency did not disclose any specific sources, it did confirm that it coordinated with law enforcement agencies.
Further, Israeli cryptocurrency research firm Whitestream also accused the Lazarus Group of being the attacker, alleging that the stolen funds were funneled through unregulated crypto exchanges known for obscuring transactions and bypassing anti-money laundering rules. However, some researchers argue that attribution remains inconclusive.
Richard Olsen, a descendant of Swiss financial magnate Julius Baer, founded Lykke, which advertised itself as a cryptocurrency trading platform that had no fees.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) of the United Kingdom issued a warning in 2023 that Lykke was not permitted to provide financial services in the country. After the hack, Lykke’s trading was halted, customer access was frozen, and its UK arm went into liquidation. Interpath Advisory was appointed to oversee the distribution of remaining funds to affected users, who reportedly lost £5.7 million.
Meanwhile, North Korea has always been in the limelight due to its notorious hacker groups. Last week, crypto investigator ZachXBT revealed that a small group of North Korean IT workers was tied to a $680,000 crypto hack, which was using fake identities and mainstream technology to infiltrate crypto projects.
In a digital era where trust is traded like currency, the fall of Lykke is a stark reminder that even the most promising platforms can vanish overnight. It has also highlighted growing international concerns about state-backed digital attacks.
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