The police of New Zealand confirmed that they are investigating a “grand theft” from the local cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia. This is stated in a press release published on January 16. According to some local media, it could be about $3.6 million.
On January 14, Cryptopia suddenly closed its website “for service”, and later it turned out that it “suffered from security vulnerabilities”.
On January 15, on Twitter, Cryptopia made a statement that the users had suffered “significant damage” and that “the exchange was set to the maintenance mode”.
Since then, Cryptopia has also stated that it will not comment on further developments, as an official investigation is being conducted by law enforcement agencies.
According to police, the investigation is still “at the stage of establishing the sequence of events.”
A police release also says:
Police are not yet in a position to say how much cryptocurrency is involved, other than it is a significant amount.
A large team, including Canterbury CIB and specialist staff from the police High Tech Crime Unit, have been assigned to the case.
In a press release, the police also said that the work is carried out at the headquarters of the company, and that the representatives of the company fully cooperate with the investigation.
Interestingly, after the announcement of the hacking of Cryptopia, a lawsuit resumed, initiated by traders who claim that they lost funds on this exchange more than a year ago. According to local media and radio stations Radio NZ, since then at least forty users of Cryptopia would like to hear explanations about how their money could have been lost.
