Last week, New Zealand Exchange Cryptopia was hacked and suffered from “a security breach which resulted in significant losses.” Although the exchange has not revealed how much was taken, data firm Elementus provided information showing that it could lose around $16 million in Ethereum (ETH) and ERC20 tokens.

Nuria Gutierrez, the co-founder of Elementus believed that the hack had been done in a different way from previous attacks.”With other hacks we have seen in the past, they just took the money and tried to launder it in one shot. But this guy has been very careful and has done many transfers in small amounts.” Gutierrez explained. 

Transfer could also help avoid detection. The thieves then took five days to take assets out, after Cryptopia Exchange knew their crypto was stolen.

According to Elementus, the hackers have been cashed out around $880,000. The remaining ~$15 million was reportedly separated into two wallets which were controlled by the thieves.

As reported by Cointelegraph, until now assessments of the lost assets ranged between $3-13 million. Around 40 Cryptopia users have proclaimed to have called for legal representation in this unacceptable occurrence.