New Zealand Police Enter the Cryptopia Hacker Hunt

On January 14th 2019, Cryptopia, one of the industry's larger cryptocurrency exchanges, was hacked and subsequently rendered offline while they investigate the security breach. While the exact figures are not clear it is certain that users of the exchange have encountered significant losses. Some are speculating to be in the region of $2.4m.

The New Zealand based exchange announced this information via their official Twitter (see below) and also announced that they will be remaining offline until they have got to the bottom of this current security breach.

pic.twitter.com/0ZwqFfwwHi

— Cryptopia Exchange (@Cryptopia_NZ) January 15, 2019

The Hunt... Is ON!

Since the announcement of the Cryptopia hack the New Zealand police force have announced that they have begun their own investigation and are going to be leaving no stone unturned. The latest up date from the NZ Police has stated that they are showing a police presence at the exchange's Colombo Street headquarters while also assigning the case to a large crime unit which includes members from both the Canterbury CIB and specialist staff from the police High Tech Crime Unit.

Although the NZ Police have stated that they are doing their utmost to track down the culprit/culprits and retrieve the lost funds they have acknowledged the difficulty in doing so. The fact is that the technology is still in its infancy which will provide difficulties of its own. The latest update from the NZ Police also goes on record to clarify fake news reports which stated that they stormed the Cryptopia offices, stating that it was not the case.

Read the Official Announcement from the NZ Police