The Telegraph<\/a>, Pyongyang has targeted digital asset platforms worldwide and generated billions in stolen funds to circumvent international sanctions and finance weapons development programs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Swiss-based platform forced into liquidation<\/h3>\n
Richard Olsen, great-grandson of Swiss banking patriarch Julius Baer, founded Lykke in 2015. It operated from Switzerland\u2019s \u201ccrypto valley\u201d in Zug while maintaining UK registration.<\/p>\n
The platform offered cryptocurrency trading without transaction fees before the attack forced operational suspension.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe attack has been attributed to malicious Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea cyberactors, who stole funds on both the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks,\u201d the Treasury\u2019s OFSI stated in its report.<\/p>\n
The company lost Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and other cryptocurrencies in the breach and was ultimately forced to halt trading operations.<\/p>\n
Experts disagree over conclusions<\/h3>\n
Whitestream, an Israeli cryptocurrency research organization, also accused Lazarus of being responsible for the Lykke hack. They also claimed that the attackers laundered stolen funds through two cryptocurrency companies known for facilitating transaction obfuscation and circumventing money-laundering controls.<\/p>\n
Other researchers disputed these conclusions, arguing that the current evidence is insufficient to identify the exchange hackers definitively.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Financial Conduct Authority issued warnings about Lykke in 2023, noting that the company was neither registered nor authorized to offer financial services to consumers in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Despite promises to return customer funds, the platform froze trading after the hack and officially ceased operations in December.<\/p>\n
Customers pursue recovery through liquidation<\/h3>\n
More than 70 customers brought a winding-up petition in UK courts and claimed losses totaling \u00a35.7 million from the company\u2019s closure.<\/p>\n
Lykke\u2019s Swiss parent company entered liquidation last year, while founder Richard Olsen was declared bankrupt in January.<\/p>\n
British legal filings indicate Olsen faces criminal investigations in Switzerland, though he has not responded to media requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Lazarus Group has been linked to numerous high-profile cryptocurrency heists globally. They use several techniques to breach exchange security and launder stolen funds through networks of digital transactions.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
North Korea\u2019s notorious Lazarus Group has been blamed for a $22.8 million crypto heist that crippled UK-registered exchange Lykke, forcing its shutdown and triggering investor lawsuits. The British Treasury\u2019s sanctions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8025"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8026,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8025\/revisions\/8026"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}