Norway has seized a record 5.8 million USD worth of cryptocurrency that was stolen by North Korean hackers last year. The Norwegian authorities released the statement on Thursday.
The Korean hackers stole $625 million in March 2022 from a blockchain project linked to the crypto-based game Axie Infinity. The theft was one of the largest of its kind on record, and was connected by the United States to a North Korean hacking group called “Lazarus”.
“This is money that can be used to finance the North Korean regime and their nuclear weapons program,” Norway’s senior public prosecutor, Marianne Bender, said in a statement.
North Korea has denied allegations of hacking or other cyberattacks.
Norway’s national economic crime unit, known as Okokrim, said it had seized the 60 million Norwegian crowns (5.84 million USD) in “one of the largest seizures of money ever made in Norway” and a record amount for a crypto seizure.
Okokrim said it worked with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crypto-tracking specialists.
Last year was the worst on record for crypto theft, with hackers stealing as much as $3.8 billion USD, led by attackers linked to North Korea, according to US-based blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Sky Mavis, the company behind Axie Infinity, is based in Vietnam but its founder, Aleksander Larsen, is Norwegian. Larsen declined to comment, but in a tweet thanked cryptocurrency exchange Binance for assisting Norwegian police with the seizure.
“When we learn of bad actors on our platform, we intervene and take appropriate action, including freezing funds and working with law enforcement to return funds to their rightful owner,” a Binance spokesperson said.
North Korea stole more cryptocurrency assets in 2022 than in any other year and targeted the networks of foreign aerospace and defense companies, according to a currently confidential United Nations report.
