Bitcoin dealer faces trial over disappearing money
Print Edition
The former CEO of collapsed Bitcoin exchange MtGox heads to trial in Tokyo next week on charges stemming from the disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the virtual currency from its digital vaults.
Frenchman Mark Karpeles — once the high-flying head of the world’s busiest Bitcoin trading platform, who reportedly lived in an US$11,000-a-month penthouse and spent money lavishly, including on prostitutes — faces embezzlement and data manipulation charges.
“He is keeping calm as the trial gets underway,” his lawyer Kiichi Iinosaid, adding Karpeles plans to plead innocent.
The 32-year-old was arrested in August, 2015, and released on bail nearly a year later over allegations he fraudulently manipulated data and pocketed millions worth of Bitcoins.
MtGox, which said it once hosted around 80 percent of global Bitcoin trading, shuttered in 2014 after admitting that 850,000 coins — worth around $480 million at the time — had disappeared from its vaults.
The company initially said there was a bug in the software underpinning Bitcoins that allowed hackers to pilfer them.
Karpeles later said he had found about 200,000 of the lost coins in a “cold wallet” — a storage device, similar memory stick, that is not connected to other computers.
Tokyo-based MtGox filed for bankruptcy protection soon after the cyber-money went missing, leaving a trail of angry investors calling for answers and denting the virtual currency’s reputation.
Karpeles, who said he is working as an IT consultant, is active on social media and has commented on issues concerning Bitcoin but not on details of his criminal case.
“The charges (against Karpeles) only cover a subset of the issues which were happening at MtGox, so I don’t expect that we will find out most of the information we want to know,” said Kolin Burges, a British investor who said he lost several hundred Bitcoins in the MtGox collapse. “I’ve not had any back yet but hopefully, eventually all the creditors will get a small percentage of their money back.”
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