Cryptopia: A homegrown lesson in cryptocurrency fraud
When Christchurch-based firm Cryptopia was hacked in 2019, leading to a staggering $27 million worth of customer investments embezzled to other exchanges, the incident made international headlines. First, it was the event itself, followed by rumours that it was an insider job. After a police investigation, Law firm Grant Thornton was appointed to manage Cryptopia’s liquidation and work with everyone who had lost their investments.
In October 2021, Grant Thornton conducted identity checks with all Cryptopia account holders. In December, the firm published its sixth statutory report on the saga, stating that it continued to track down the stolen investments and filed recovery actions in Singapore, Malaysia, and the United States.
“We continue our investigations to trace and or freeze stolen crypto-assets and are in discussion with exchanges that have frozen stolen cryptocurrency. We are working on providing the detailed analysis of hacked coins to these exchanges in our attempts to have these funds released to the Liquidators’ control. The legal decision confirms that any stolen cryptocurrency recovered is to be applied to the specific trust associated with each cryptocurrency.”
But even Grant Thornton couldn’t keep out of trouble. In August 2020, another former Cryptopia employee stole money from Cryptopia’s deposit addresses after Grant Thornton had taken over the liquidation…
