A man has allegedly be sought guilty of stealing around $170,000 worth of cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, the culprit is also held responsible for breaching secrecy regarding the use of personal data. This latest news is an addition to a round of polemics regarding New Zealand’s disintegrated crypto exchange Cryptopia.
An ex-employee at the exchange admitted using the customer’s data for financial benefit. He also admitted that he stole close to NZD 250,000 (USD 176,000) from his previous company. During today’s hearing in the Christchurch District Court, this anonymous ex-employee appeared before judge Gerard Lynch. He accepted all the allegations raised against him, as reported by Stuff.co.nz, a local new website.
A summary of the court’s verdict suggests that the culprit provided more information about the crime. As per him, he approached the company’s top management several times to show his concerns over the security of locker keys for multiple crypto assets.
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Court further added that he created unauthorized keys from Cryptopia’s wallets and saved them in USB. The ex-employee then took those devices home and saved a copy of the data on his personal computer.
In addition to that, Cryptopia also got hacked in the past February. This incident provided hackers with the opportunity to steal NZD 62,000 (USD 44,000) worth of cryptocurrencies. As a result, hackers got access to the US blockchain business Stakenet.
As per the evidence provided in the court, the former employee was not associated with the previous hacks. In total, the wallet’s cost was estimated at around 2.7 million worth of Stakenet (XSN).
Sadly! The parent company that owns Cryptopia went bankrupt in May 2019. Since then, operations were monetarized by an audit firm ‘Grant Thornton.’ As a result of insolvency, Cryptopia canceled all the contracts of its employees, but the ex-employee kept the duplicate keys.
Things turned wrong last September, when a former Cryptopia customer sent an official email to one of the representatives of Grant Thornton, stating that he deposited bitcoin (BTC) into his old wallet accidentally, and asked for the withdrawal.
A detailed investigation about the platform’s wallets revealed massive irregularities. BTC 13 (USD 447,000) has been withdrawn from multiple wallets without the authorization of Grant Thornton.
