The hackers involved in the hacking of crypto exchange Exmo have successfully withdrawn stolen $4 million from the exchange Poloniex.

Loss of $10.5 Million

The UK-based exchange Exmo was hacked on December 21 in which a significant portion of the company’s total assets was lost. After the incident, the trading firm terminated withdrawal service for its customers. According to an estimation, the U-based exchange lost a total of $10.5 million in different cryptocurrencies including, Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Tether (USDT), Zcash (ZEC), Ethereum (ETH), and XRP.

The affected firm is trying to recover stolen funds, but the withdrawn funds cannot be recovered. The executives of Exmo accused Poloniex of allowing hackers to withdraw funds in two cryptocurrencies, including ZEC ($2.8 million) and XRP ($1 million). They also claimed that weak know your customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) policies of the exchange permit hackers to withdraw digital assets. Exmo reported the issue to Seychelles Central Bank as Poloniex has transferred its headquarters from the US to Seychelles.

In response, the spokesperson of Poloniex said the company “adheres to stringent procedures to monitor, detect, prevent and report possible money laundering and financial crimes.” According to the crypto exchange:

“The affected accounts were created more than 4 weeks ago and were fully verified using the aforementioned software and standards.”

An official from Poloniex Compliance Department revealed that the firm blocked two accounts after receiving information from Exmo’s team. Moreover, the funds were already withdrawn after the action against the two took place. “After we received the information from the Exmo team, we quickly identified and froze the two accounts. Unfortunately all affected assets had been withdrawn hours before we were even contacted by Exmo,” he added.

As a result of the hacking attack, the firm has lost grip over 5% of its digital assets, which is a great loss. According to reports, the hackers attacked the hot wallets of the trading company and promised customers to cover their losses in the stealing attack.

In an attempt to recover lost funds, the UK crypto firm has asked for help from the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Yobit and Kraken. The prominent crypto analytics firms CipherTrace and Chainalysis have also promised to assist in this probing.

As per the given information of the platform, the withdrawal service for the biggest digital assets will be resumed between December 25 and 26.