Latest news with #Brink's-Mat
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
What we know about The Gold series 2 as BBC sets release date
BBC heist drama The Gold is returning for a second series following a well-received first outing that attracted more than million viewers, making it one of the broadcaster's top new shows in 2023. Based on real events, The Gold told a dramatised version of the 1983 Brink's-Mat gold heist where around £26 million worth of gold was stolen from a security warehouse near London's Heathrow Airport. At the time, this crime was believed to have been the most lucrative gold heist ever, with the amount stolen equating to around £93 million by today's standards. What followed was a criminal case where authorities tried to track down those involved whilst recovering as much stolen gold as possible. However, it was easier said than done — with much of the stolen gold spread throughout the world and eventually crossing paths with those associated with organised crime and money laundering. Today, it is widely believed that anyone who bought an item of gold jewellery after 1983 could very well own some of the material stolen during the Brink's-Mat heist. The six-episode second series of The Gold will return on Sunday, 8 June, with all episodes available to stream on BBC iPlayer from 6am, ahead of the series starting on BBC One at 9pm that evening. Yes. The first trailer for The Gold series 2 was released by the BBC in May 2025. It shows the police now in hot pursuit of the criminals behind the heist. The first series of The Gold starred Downton Abbey's Hugh Bonneville as DCI Brian Boyce. Together with Charlotte Spencer's DI Nicki Jennings and Emun Elliott's DI Tony Brightwell, the trio attempted to track down those responsible for stealing the gold during the Brink's-Mat heist. Bonneville, Spencer and Elliott will all return for the second series, as the investigation around what happened to the gold continues to unfold. Slow Horses actor Jack Lowden will also be back, alongside Doctor Who's Peter Davison and Fargo's Sam Spruell. They will be joined by Tom Cullen, Stefanie Martini, Amanda Drew, Silas Carson and James Nelson-Joyce. New additions to the cast will include History Boys actor Stephen Campbell Moore, Victoria star Tom Hughes, Saltburn's Joshua Samuels and Lovesick's Joshua McGuire. The synopsis for The Gold series two explains: 'Following multiple court cases and convictions of some of those involved in the theft and handling of the Brink's-Mat gold, the police realised that they had only ever been on the trail of half of the Brink's-Mat gold. 'Series two is inspired by some of the theories around what happened to the other half. As the police investigation continues, it becomes a tense, high-stakes journey into international money laundering and organised crime. The Brink's-Mat Task Force embark on a series of dramatic manhunts as they desperately try to solve the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Metropolitan Police.' The Gold series 2 is coming to BBC One and iPlayer on Sunday, 8 June.
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Scotsman
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Emun Elliott shines in The Gold as the BBC heist drama goes global
Edinburgh actor Emun Elliott stars in Neil Forsyth's hit BBC drama, The Gold, now returning for a second season | Leigh Lothian The Edinburgh actor explains why forty years after the biggest bullion heist in history the Brinks-Mat story still fires the imagination Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Edinburgh actor Emun Elliott stars in Neil Forsyth's hit BBC drama, The Gold, now returning for a second season | Leigh Lothian 'If you've bought any gold after 1983 there's a really good chance that somewhere in it is a piece of the stolen Brink's-Mat bullion,' says Emun Elliott who is back as detective Tony Brightwell in season two of Neil Forsyth's hit BBC TV drama The Gold. 'It's a story that spans years and changed the world as we know it. I think that's why people are so intrigued by it,' says the Scottish actor. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Elliott is back as detective Tony Brightwell in the second season of the dramatisation of the real life 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, the biggest ever gold heist in history, when six robbers broke into a warehouse near Heathrow and stole £26 million's worth of gold bars, sparking the longest and at that time most expensive investigation in the history of the Metropolitan police. Emun Elliott stars as real life detective Tony Brightwell, on the trail of the gold and criminals involved in the 1983 Brinks-Mat robbery. | Leigh Lothian Season Two picks up the story after the conviction of some of those involved and the police's realisation that they've only been chasing half of the gold. Brightwell teams up once more with Nicki Jennings [Charlotte Spencer] and their boss, DCI Brian Boyce [Hugh Bonneville] to continue hunting the three tonne haul of gold on its journey through international money laundering and organised crime. 'The story goes on,' says Elliott. 'It becomes international and we learn how that gold and the money from it found its way into so many criminal enterprises across the globe. We see how it changed people, how that level of wealth and power changed the criminals involved and the pursuit of it changed the authorities and security systems.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Based on a true story, the crime has always captured the public imagination for its audacity. 'Neil [Forsyth] has obviously taken creative licence but it's based on fact and it's a truly fascinating story that bleeds into every element of society. 'Older people remember but the younger generation don't, and on the surface the robbery itself is staggeringly impressive and shocking. These six South Londoners in a van pretty much managed to get away with it - until they got caught.' 'A classic tale of cops and robbers just works, but it's very much not black and white. There are points where you want the bad guys to get away with it and others where you want the authorities to catch up with them. Also, the way it was shot has an almost documentary feel that brings reality to an over the top story. It's fascinating. Historically the Brink's-Mat robbery changed the world: criminality changed, security systems, legislation, the criminal underworld had to adapt and find new ways of operating and new technology became available for the police on their trail.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Although Tony Brightwell was a real person who was part of the Flying Squad working on the investigation, Neil Forsyth decided to make him Scottish, meaning that Edinburgh based Elliott could use his own accent. Emun Elliott plays real life detective Tony Brightwell, one of the Brink's-Mat Task Force of the Metropolitan police in series two of The Gold on BBC. | BBC 'He passed away years ago and there's one little talking head clip of him. He's very much English, but Neil wanted a Scottish voice as part of the story so we decided to go our own way and that allowed me to bring a lot of myself to the character. I also had to make sure that he was different to Kenny from Guilt,' says Elliott, who was delighted to be working with Forsyth again. Because the ramifications of the heist are international Elliott gets to follow the trails from rainy London to sunnier shores. 'I remember furiously flicking through the script, hoping Tony gets a little piece of the sunshine these criminals seem to be enjoying. Later in season two Jennings and Brightwell are sent to the Caribbean, which we filmed in Tenerife, and that was joyful to play some scenes in the sun and not have to wear that hideous anorak that Brightwell cuts about in for the first four episodes.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It's true Brightwell doesn't have the sartorial confidence and panache of Kenny in the BAFTA winning Guilt, also written by Neil Forsyth. 'Brightwell is written as this everyman, a guy who's never had a huge amount of ambition, happy to plod along doing his job, good at what he does, has a wife and kids and a mortgage. I'd never played a character like that, so it became a study of what is an everyman and how do you make that interesting? How did he go about it? 'I thought what is it about me that makes me not an everyman, and tried to lose those characteristics. How do you make someone who doesn't have really strong characteristics interesting, make someone safe and relaxed and trustworthy and comfortable? It's the exploration of someone on the back foot, and for me the best thing was just to relax. A lot of time on set I'm focusing on what am I trying to do in this scene or putting onto this character but with Tony it was more about how horizontally can I play this guy and how do I make that interesting? It was a different process that became really enjoyable. The more I relaxed and allowed things to happen, the freer the process became.' Emun Elliott | Leigh Lothian Elliott was also pleased to revisit Brightwell's easy working relationship with his side-kick detective Nicki Jennings, played by Charlotte Spencer, as the returning cast which includes Tom Cullen, Stefanie Martini and Sam Spruell is supplemented by a host of new characters. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'Our relationship is very like that in real life,' he says. 'We found this immediate platonic chemistry that leads into that relationship on screen. I think it's important for the show because a lot of the story is quite heavy, high stakes and serious and it's nice to have a dynamic that roots the show in realism and allows for humour and banter.' Emun Elliott and Charlotte Spencer as dtectives Tony Brightwell and Nicki Jennings in The Gold, season two on BBC. | BBC The most agitated the dogged and determined Brightwell gets is over his breakfast at the B&B he and Jennings stay in on the Isle of Man as they followed the trail of laundered money, when it doesn't follow his tattie scone and black pudding expectations. A creature of habit, like everyone in the early 1990s, a time of faxes, phone booths and fags, he smokes at every possible opportunity. Was that onerous for Elliott? 'Well I'm from a long line of smokers… But unfortunately you're not allowed to smoke real cigarettes on set any more so those cigarettes are herbal and if you think the smell of a real cigarette is bad, these herbal things… Shooting a scene in a tiny office for eight hours and every time that camera rolls I light one of those, I don't think the cast and crew appreciate that. I don't know how many I got through. I should look at the consequences health-wise because they've surely taken a couple of months off my already shortened life.' Emun Elliott | Leigh Lothian Another thing the fictional Brightwell has is a moustache, a familiar facial addition for Elliott. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'What happens is I have a moustache for a job then shave it off then go for a hair and makeup check for the next one and they say 'let's try something different, let's try a moustache'. He laughs. 'I think people just like seeing me with a moustache. I don't always have one. It seems to mysteriously make its way onto my upper lip so deep down there's clearly a deep affinity I have with it. But it's started to go white and grey and that's really concerning because it's losing its definition and becoming something else entirely. As regards my career, the minute it goes completely grey, I'm either going to be doing all sorts of different work or none at all - I really think all my magic lies somewhere within that moustache.' Now 41, Elliott was raised in Edinburgh by his social worker mother and Iranian/Persian university lecturer father. Has Elliott ever visited Iran? 'I've been there twice. Once when I was eight and once when I was 19. So it's been a long time. But all of my extended family is there. My mum's side in the UK is small whereas in Iran my dad has five brothers who all have wives and huge families so it was amazing to go and meet people and recognise similarities and explore this culture. In the media the story we're told of Iran is often very political and focuses on the regime which is brutal, so to go and see another side, see what families are like behind closed doors, how warm and welcoming and rich that culture is, was a real eye-opener and made me for the first time in my life, when I was 19, to be really proud to be Persian. It was important for me to explore that for myself, because the narrative we're told over here focuses on the bad really.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad After school Elliott went to study English and French at Aberdeen University but left in first year to study drama at the RSAMD, where he was awarded a gold medal then embarked on a career that has seen him work with some of the biggest names in the industry. After landing the role as Private Fraser in The National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch (2006-8) he appeared alongside Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne in the 2010 horror film Black Death which led to Ridley Scott casting him as a space pilot in the 2012 sci-fi epic Prometheus and a role in the 2015 Star Wars blockbuster The Force Awakens, with TV credits including Game of Thrones, and more recently TV hit such as Neil Forsyth's Guilt, The Rig, Sexy Beast and now The Gold. Was it a hard decision to leave university and try acting? 'It was a difficult decision. I realised I wanted to be an actor years before that but never thought of it as a serious option for me.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Elliott's love of acting began back in primary school where he played the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. 'The caterpillar, my first ever acting job. That still sets the bar,' he jokes. 'I think I was five, but I still remember the song and the dance. I had even invented this little walk.' In Lewis Carroll's book the caterpillar offers Alice advice on changing size and poses the existential question 'Who are you?", as befits an insect that will one day transform into a butterfly and fly away. Did Elliott's caterpillar have a moustache? 'Not quite. I hadn't quite developed,' he says. Playing the caterpillar was transformative and planted the idea that acting was something Elliott enjoyed. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'It came easily, it was where I thrived. It wasn't on the curriculum so I got to grips with it after school, national youth theatres and whatnot, but I really developed a love for being on stage and part of an ensemble. And I was told I was good at it, but when I left school I thought I better get a degree, something academic, but after a few months I thought this isn't making me happy. It just wasn't thrilling me. 'My parents had always encouraged me to do something that makes me happy so it took me a couple of months to pluck up courage to say I don't want to do this, I want to have a shot at pursuing my dream. Thank god I did and got to drama school and that so far it's working out. 'But I think no good thing has ever happened to me without a massive risk preceding it. Dropping out of university and applying for drama school was a huge risk. I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't got in, but it's led to some of the best things I've ever done.' Emun Elliott | Leigh Lothian What would he say is the best thing he's ever done? 'The best thing is just having a career. I know how difficult it is, even for successful actors, the long periods of unemployment initially, the financial strain, that constant rejection, it's a lot for anyone, but especially a young person to take, and many people fall by the wayside. A lot of brilliant actors don't get the opportunities they deserve and a lot of terrible actors do, so the fact there's no real meritocracy can be really difficult. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'My greatest achievement is no particular job but managing to have a semblance of a career. That's enough for me.' As for the future, are there any roles Elliott hasn't played but would like to? 'I don't really have a plan or my mind set on particular roles. I want to play characters at the centre of the story. I've had the opportunity in the past but a lot of my work has been supportive, which I love but moving into the third decade of my career, I'm drawn towards characters who have enough screen time to allow them to breathe. It really gives the actor the opportunity to show what they can do. 'I want to keep playing characters that have more and more depth. I want them to be constantly surprising. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'But I like all of it. More recently playing characters that are closer to myself allows you to explore every element of your own character. I also like jobs like Sexy Beast, playing someone as far away from me as possible.' In the crime drama TV series released last year, a prequel of the 2000 film Sexy Beast starring Ray Winston and Ben Kingsley, Elliott took over Kingsley's role of Don Logan, and owned the terrifyingly hair-trigger tempered, violent sidekick of James McArdle's Gal Dove. 'To continue to mix it up and surprise audiences and see how much I can get away with in terms of making people believe I'm someone else. That's the thrill,' he says. Aside from being in front of the camera, Elliott admits he has a hankering to write, and a story he'd like to tell. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'If I were to write, I would write the story of how my dad met my mother, because it was in 1979 just after the Iranian revolution. My dad had just landed on the shores of Edinburgh and they met on Princes Street. My mum was 16 and my dad was 21 so they were kids. My dad was working in shipping - import and export - for the Iranian shipping service, and as a 16 year old she jumped on his ship and they travelled the world together for months. That's the story I'd love to tell someday.' So what did his dad say to his mum on Princes Street? 'Well there are two different…' says Elliott, and then, like the caterpillar, disappears. Our Zoom time is up and I'm left like Alice, wondering. But being a story teller and a trooper, he sends an email taking up the tale: 'When it comes to writing - someday I'd love to tell the story of how my parents met. My dad was an officer on an Iranian shipping line in the late 70s/early 80s. They had stopped off for a few days in Edinburgh. He met my mum on Princes Street. She was 16, my dad was 20. They fell in love and embarked on this magnificent adventure around the world together, crossing continents and oceans. Both from very different cultures and backgrounds but together on this voyage of love, hardship and discovery. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'They both have different versions of the story so I'd want to somehow tell my Mum's version of the story side by side with my dad's - mainly for comic effect but also to show how two different people can have two very different versions of the same tale. It will be a story of falling in love cross culturally at a very political time in both British and Iranian history, set all over the earth and seas! First step is to sit down with each of my parents individually and document their version of events. Watch this space!'
Wales Online
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Wales Online
BBC series with 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating and starring Hugh Bonneville gets first-look
Our community members are treated to special offers, promotions and adverts from us and our partners. You can check out at any time. More info BBC fans will be thrilled as the next series of The Gold is set to hit screens soon, delving further into the infamous 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, which saw armed robbers make off with £26 million in gold and sparked off a chain of events that spanned decades. This week,the BBC dropped an electrifying new trailer packed with high-speed pursuits, puzzled law enforcement and the lavish lifestyle of criminals. It culminates with Brian Boyce, portrayed by Hugh Bonneville, ominously declaring: "I don't know where this ends, but I know that it's begun." The upcoming series promises to unpack a complex saga as the synopsis reads: "Following multiple court cases and convictions of some of those involved in the theft and handling of the Brink's-Mat gold, the police realised that they had only ever been on the trail of half of the Brink's-Mat gold. (Image: (Image: BBC)) "Series two is inspired by some of the theories around what happened to the other half. As the police investigation continues, it becomes a tense, high-stakes journey into international money laundering and organised crime. "The Brink's-Mat Task Force embark on a series of dramatic manhunts as they desperately try to solve the longest and most expensive investigation in the history of the Metropolitan Police." (Image: (Image: BBC)) Set to air on 8 June, viewers will witness Hugh Bonneville reprising his role as Brian Boyce, alongside Charlotte Spencer as Nicki Jennings, Emun Elliott as Tony Brightwell and Tom Cullen as John Palmer, reports the Express. Other cast members making a comeback include Stefanie Martini, Sam Spruell, Peter Davison, Amanda Drew, Silas Carson and Silas Carson. Jack Lowden of Slow Horses fame will also be returning to The Gold as Kenneth Noye, making his appearance from the third episode onwards. (Image: (Image: BBC)) The new ensemble includes notable actors such as Tom Hughes, Stephen Campbell Moore, Joshua McGuire, Tamsin Topolski, Joshua Samuels and Rochelle Neil. Viewers have praised the first series of The Gold, with one person commenting: "Fantastic viewing.... great cast and super performances by all. Charlotte plays a great part, second time I have seen her in something and I am now a huge fan." Another said: "Outstanding British crime drama. Excellent character development and I was up to 1am watching the first 4 episodes. Can't wait to see episode 5." Someone else wrote: "A really gripping show, great actors, is so well directed you feel like you are right there with them." While one person said: "Fantastic, absolutely psyched for the second series. Brilliant acting." The Gold is back on BBCiPlayer and BBCOne on Sunday 8th June at 9pm.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How hermit kingdom North Korea became a hacking superpower
At first glance, 'Matt' looks like the perfect solution to your firm's evolving IT needs. He's worked for a small software outfit, and has a CV that suggests he is both a self-starter and a team player. He performs well in a Zoom interview, and soon gets hired, working from home on those late shifts that nobody else wants to do. It's only a few weeks in, when your firm suffers a ransomware attack, that Matt's true nature as a 'team player' is revealed. For his real boss is the government of North Korea, where he's part of an elite team of state-trained hackers. The software firm that gave him glowing references was a fake, as was his job interview – courtesy of AI software that relayed a video image of someone else entirely. Luckily, your firm is insured for cyberattacks, and in return for £1 million, Matt agrees not to wipe all your data. But not everyone who falls foul of North Korea's hackers gets away so lightly – as proved by February's catastrophic attack on the Dubai-based cryptocurrency exchange Bybit. In a raid thought to have employed similar methods to the fictional scenario outlined above, a team from Pyongyang made off with $1.5bn (£1.2bn) – the largest heist in criminal history. The loot totalled nearly 50 times the £26 million stolen in London's Brink's-Mat robbery in 1983, and more, even, than Brad Pitt and George Clooney pinch in all three Oceans movies combined. Indeed, the exploits of the Lazarus Group, as Pyongyang's cybercriminals are known, could generate a movie franchise in themselves. In 2016, they masterminded the Bangladesh Bank heist, in which nearly $100m was stolen via the SWIFT international payment system. The following year came the global WannaCry attack, infiltrating out-of-date Windows systems in some 150 countries, including many used by Britain's NHS. It would, however, be a brave Hollywood film-maker who took on the Lazarus biopic. The group is most notorious for its attack on Sony Pictures in 2014, when it hacked the emails of the movie bosses behind The Interview, a film lampooning North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un. Lazarus's prowess is all the more remarkable, given North Korea's reputation as a backward, Stalinist state. In a land where most people do not have a dumbphone, let alone an internet connection (a privilege limited to a few thousand high-ranking officials), where does one find computer-literate people? And, how, in turn, do they develop into some of the best hackers in the world, capable of plundering hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loot every year? After all, Bybit was not some time-warped backwater of Britain's health service, but the world's second largest cryptocurrency exchange, which prided itself on 'industry-leading security measures'. To trace the answer, one has to go back to the late 1990s, when a shy adolescent North Korean student enrolled at a posh boarding school in Switzerland, telling other pupils he was a Pyongyang diplomat's son. In fact, it was a teenage Kim Jong Un, sent there secretly by his father, then-North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il, to learn about life outside the hermit kingdom. He was, by all accounts, an unremarkable student, spending much of his time playing video games. But one thing he did pick up was an acute awareness of how central computers were becoming to modern life. And when he and his brother, Kim Jong Chul returned home a few years later, that lesson was duly passed on. 'They were the ones who enlightened their father,' says Thae Yong Ho, Pyongyang's former ambassador to London, who defected to South Korea in 2016. 'Kim Jong Il quickly caught the advantages of these computers and networking.' This was not so that North Korea's population could enjoy the mind-broadening benefits of the 'information superhighway', as it was then known. Kim Jong Il, Thae says, saw computerisation purely as a 'more efficient' way to run his police state, and soon set up specialist schools devoted to hi-tech spying, espionage and warfare. These gathered pace when Kim Jong-Un took over after his father's death in 2011, and paid handsome dividends five years later when hackers stole top-secret military plans from South Korea which included documents setting out how a feared war with the country's northern neighbour might play out, and a plot to 'decapitate' North Korea by assassinating Kim Jong Un. But what began as an instrument for self-preservation has increasingly become one for self-enrichment. With North Korea's economy on its knees because of sanctions on its nuclear weapons program, Lazarus's ill-gotten gains are now a vital source of revenue. It's also more efficient than previous regime scams, such as exporting crystal meth and getting embassies to use their diplomatic immunity for smuggling. In 2023, a UN monitoring body reported that cyber-theft accounted for half of the state's total foreign-currency revenue. The majority of the proceeds are thought to be spent on its weapons programme. Today, North Korea's cyber-army is thought to be more than 8,000-strong, most of them talented maths students cherry-picked from school. Within North Korea, they operate within the innocuous-sounding Reconnaissance General Bureau, although when in action, their cyber noms de guerre include Lazarus, BeagleBoyz, Hidden Cobra, and APT38. (the 'APT' stands for 'advanced persistent threat.') The system used to recruit them bears similarities to that used by the Soviets to hone athletes and chess prodigies during the Cold War, marked by long, gruelling hours of work, often away from family. There is precious little personal choice to exercise in North Korea, after all, but in return for service in what Kim Jong-Un refers to as his 'all-purpose sword' – gathering intel, waging cyberwarfare and raking in stolen funds – they get certain privileges. These include exemption from service in state-run labour programs, material benefits such as cars and comfortable homes, and rare opportunities to travel abroad, such as to global maths contests like the International Mathematical Olympiad. The Olympiad tests using applied maths to solve messy real-life problems – just the kind of lateral thinking required for hacking. North Korean contestants have consistently ranked in the top five in the contest – and true to form for hackers, have twice been caught cheating. Yet it's not simply their hot-housed technical expertise that makes them so effective. For just as bank robbers often use insiders who know an institution's weak spots, most cyber-heists exploit human weakness, be it sending out 'phishing' emails, or befriending employees to fool them into divulging a password. Known in the trade as 'social engineering' – cybercrime-speak for an old-fashioned confidence trick – this is where disciplined North Koreans can be far more effective than the average private criminal gang. 'It really comes down to persistence,' says Sarah Kern, North Korea expert at US cyber-security firm SecureWorks. 'The North Koreans will carry out social engineering conversations and relationships over months or even longer, building a rapport with potential targets so that they will trust them enough to open a link with something malicious in it.' This appears to be the technique used in the Bybit attack, which targeted the firm's third-party 'cold wallet' service – a secure storage facility that holds crypto-coin offline. To draw a conventional banking analogy, this is the rough equivalent of a vault from where bank tellers make periodic withdrawals to replenish their day-to-day trading stocks. According to reports, the attackers used social engineering to compromise the cold wallet computers ahead of a withdrawal by Bybit's executives. So when the executives signed off the transfer, the cash was diverted instead to the hackers. Bybit has not disclosed the hackers' exact method. But in the hyper-online crypto-currency world – where many people go by pseudonyms anyway – it's not hard for Lazarus operatives to make friends. Kern, for example, says they will infiltrate online communities of blockchain engineers and software developers, slowly building up relationships. Hackers also rely on flattery, according to Jake Moore, a former police cybersecurity expert who works for European cybersecurity firm ESET. One tactic is to pose as online head-hunters on LinkedIn, approaching software developers with lucrative salary offers. 'They will tell someone they have the skill set for a very good job, then invite them for a quick online interview where they might disclose all kinds of info about the software programs they're currently using – stuff they'd never otherwise volunteer,' he says. 'At that point they might also be asked to click on an online job application form with malware in it. Another approach is to pose as a TV firm asking for an interview – anything that gets the target excited, and distracted from the usual security protocols.' This, again, is what apparently happened at Bybit, whose third-party cold wallet service has reportedly blamed a Lazarus affiliate called TraderTraitor, which specifically targets cryptocurrency employees. According to the FBI, which first put out a warning about TraderTraitor two years ago, the group 'offers high-paying jobs to entice the recipients to download malware-laced cryptocurrency applications'. So what will happen to the proceeds of Lazarus's $1.5bn heist? Unfortunately for Bybit, the deregulated nature of cryptocurrency makes it all too easy to launder funds. Within minutes of the heist, the hackers were feeding the cash through networks of other exchanges and cold-wallets, attempting to hide its origins. Experts say the North Koreans are particularly good at this, with some suggesting they are the 'most sophisticated crypto launderers' ever, scooping up, on average, some 90 per cent of the funds they successfully target. While some more reputable exchanges agreed to Bybit's requests to freeze the stolen funds, others have declined, meaning only a fraction is likely to be recovered. Networks of local fixers worldwide will already be laundering the money into legitimate banks, businesses and property investments, proceeds of which then ultimately filter back to Pyongyang. Some of this is thought to be done through China, which has long turned a blind eye to its neighbour's rackets. Bybit is trying to make that process as hard as possible, courtesy of its new 'Lazarus Bounty' programme, whereby online sleuths who help trace the stolen funds get 10 per cent of anything recovered. Yet not all of Lazarus's hacking activity is about large-scale theft. Last year, US prosecutors warned that thousands of North Korean hackers were obtaining high-paid jobs as remote-working IT experts in the US and Europe, taking advantage of the fact that in today's globalised, work-from-home business environment, many employees never set foot in a company office. Prosecutors issued a $5m bounty for the arrest of 14 North Koreans, whom it said posed online as US citizens to apply for tech jobs. Some even got real-life US accomplices to pose in the job interviews for them, who'd then get company laptops sent to their home addresses. While the purpose of the attacks appeared to be simply to earn a regular paycheck – some jobs paid $300,000 per year – the hackers would often terminate their employment with a ransomware attack. Meanwhile, they were also gaining invaluable real-world experience of how US firms' tech systems operate. Alarmingly for the UK, meanwhile, it was reported this week that North Koreans are increasingly infiltrating British companies by posing as remote employees. IT staff from the country have been hired for a number of web development and artificial intelligence projects, researchers at Google found, potentially aided by local facilitators. For employers who think this kind of thing will never happen to them, Moore has a salutary tale about a 'social engineering' experiment he set up for a UK law firm that he advised. He created a fake online profile for 'Jessica', a young (and attractive) female law graduate, who messaged the firm's 100 employees via LinkedIn seeking work. Would they mind if she emailed them her CV? 'There was a piece of malware buried inside the CV, which would have given a real life hacker a way in,' says Moore. 'Most of the firm didn't fall for it, but three of them did, and even asked if she'd like to meet up for a drink. It's easier for hackers to operate than people think.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Government's net zero obsession is driving legions of Brits to move abroad – who can blame them?
The heating bill arrives at Pearson Towers like one of those Howlers in Harry Potter; a furious, squawking letter which announces itself at high volume and may explode if the recipient fails to open it in a timely manner. I glance at it – HOW MUCH? – and hastily close it. Please don't ask. What can I tell you? I like to be toasty while Boarding-School Boy is a stern invigilator of the thermostat. Anything above 19 and I can expect a tsk-tsk lecture. 'Did I tell you we had to break the ice in the sink when we woke up?' Yes, you did, darling. Many times. So I crank it up to 22 when he's out and the result is the extortionate demand that just landed. That and the heated rails in the bathroom which are basically the Brink's-Mat robbery plus towels. 'The rise in energy bills as a result of the global spike in gas prices, will be worrying news for families,' said Ed Miliband yesterday. 'As long as we remain exposed to fossil fuel markets, we'll be stuck on the rollercoaster of prices.' That's not true, though, is it, Ed? Wholesale gas prices actually fell in 2023. Until now, our Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero has been able to hide his crazy stratagems behind the 'war in Ukraine' excuse. No longer. The new energy price cap, announced yesterday, is £1,849, an increase of over six per cent. If it's really exposure to fossil fuel markets that causes soaring prices, how come the UK has the highest energy costs in the developed world? (We now fork out more than three times what American consumers pay.) The British people are being robbed blind and conned to boot. It's Miliband's 'clean energy mission' and the £900-plus a year we are obliged to to pay for hidden green subsidies that is driving prices ever higher. According to the energy consultant Kathryn Porter, last year we spent a stonking £9.5 billion on renewable subsidies. No wonder the green sector is said to be 'booming'. That'll be all the money that Mad Ed is redistributing from us to his fellow net zero zealots, solar-panel multimillionaires and not forgetting those frightfully deserving Chinese chappies. Since Labour came to power, energy bills have gone up by £250. That means they will have to fall by over £550 for Miliband and Sir Keir Starmer to deliver the £300 reduction in energy bills they promised us during the general election campaign. What are the chances of that happening, do you reckon? If only we had bountiful supplies of gas, oil and coal under our feet that would enable prices to come right down and Britain to become a net exporter of energy. Oh. But exploiting our own natural resources for the benefit of worried families would mean removing the hairshirt Ed is making us wear because we started that dirty old Industrial Revolution, don't you know. Meanwhile, the Government begrudgingly increases state pensions by 4.1 per cent, while their energy goes up six per cent, council tax up 5 per cent (£1,500 at least), water £500 (at least), petrol (God help us), pet insurance (alas, poor Fido!). Plus the National Insurance tax hike coming in April which will inevitably see businesses passing on costs to the beleaguered customer. Life feels more and more like a Tom and Jerry cartoon where we are hit by a hammer and constantly seeing stars. Is it any wonder so many Brits are now seriously discussing which country they're moving to? In the past fortnight, I have found myself having numerous conversations with people who would never have contemplated leaving the UK but who have started weighing up places where they would pay less tax and get much more for their money. That's pretty much anywhere to be frank. One friend, Alan, a hugely successful entrepreneur who has created numerous well-paying jobs, is looking at the Channel Islands. It's not just the tax, he says, 'but my regret at the state of the nation, the shockingly poor quality of the Government and how our money is being spent.' Alan is far from alone. Analysis by Henley & Partners shows there was a net outflow of 10,800 high-net worth individuals from the UK in 2024. The flight was particularly notable at the top end, with 78 centi-millionaires (worth at least $100 million) and 12 billionaires leaving. 'Goodbye and good riddance to rich b---ards,' crow the Leftists on social media, apparently unaware that the rich b---ards keep their beloved public services afloat. In 2024-25, the top one per cent of income tax payers contributed 28.2 per cent of all income tax. Well, not for much longer at the present rate of attrition. A senior banker tells me he has been in recent meetings in Monaco and Geneva where the excited chatter is of how dire things are in the UK. 'They are delighted to be picking up clients and investors because Labour is shafting so many people. I feel embarrassed and upset that my country has come to this.' Who doesn't? Strangling the geese who lay the golden eggs accelerated after Rachel Reeves used her first Budget to unveil £40 billion of tax rises. Fiddling with non-dom status and slapping VAT on school fees further abetted the socialist project of national economic suicide which was already going so swimmingly as we compete to become the first country to hit net zero. (A race other countries seem strangely reluctant to enter.) It's not just the wealthy who are relocating. Plenty of younger people who can't get a foot on the property ladder are moving to the UAE and elsewhere to take advantage of tax-free income so they can save for a deposit in the UK. If your upcoming generation can't afford a home or think about starting a family, then your country is in deep trouble. Couples I know with a very healthy joint income have to borrow from retired parents for unexpected emergencies like a new boiler. The cost of living is horrendous. Plans to educate their children privately are shelved. They gaze longingly at Australia where private schools are subsidised by the government (no spiteful, debilitating class envy or Bridget Philistine driving down standards) and there is a fantastic healthcare system. It's full of top doctors who have fled the smouldering wreckage of the NHS. Part of Britain's Diaspora of Despair. So, when are we leaving for sunnier climes, ladies and gents? My friend Tonia is taking me out to Cyprus in April to view a lovely new development by the sea. She entices me with the prospect of no tax for 17 years; even better, no Ed Miliband. So no faint feeling of nausea every time you open the heating bill – HOW MUCH? I don't know about you, but I'm finding it quite hard to bear, occupying this ringside seat at the decline and fall of our dear country. For the first time in my life, I feel the attraction of leaving, I really do, but I won't leave, at least I don't think so. I don't blame anyone who does (why wouldn't you want to escape the Government's punishment beatings?). Just, you know, some of us have to stick around to vote out these stupid bl--dy imbeciles and take Britain back. Are you tempted to leave the UK – if so where would you move, or maybe you're living there already? Please do share any recommendations in the comments. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
