Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès Arrested Over Lost 650,000 Bitcoins

More than a year after troubled Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox folded, authorities have finally moved against the beleaguered firm. Japanese police have arrested former CEO Mark Karpelès for his involvement in the collapse of the exchange. Leading up to the collapse, the exchange reportedly lost 750,000 Bitcoins belonging to customers as well as 100,000 held by Mt. Gox itself.

According to the Japanese police, Karpelès faces allegations that he manipulated the balance of company accounts as well as those of customers. Claims were also made that some of the missing Bitcoins may have never existed at all and that he falsified data to inflate the company’s assets. At the time, Mt. Gox blamed the loss of the Bitcoins on a bug and later hackers as well as simply losing them. Before filing for bankruptcy, the firm announced it had “found” 200,000 of the missing coins.

At the time of its closure, Mt. Gox was the biggest and most well-known Bitcoin exchange. When the coins were lost, they were worth almost $500 million, though that has since dropped to about $184 million. Karpelès denies any wrong doing at this point and blames the loss of Bitcoins on hackers and weak cyber security.

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