Former Mt.Gox Head Facing Ten Years Behind Bars

After fraudulently manipulating data and running away with millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency, Mark Karpeles is facing some heavy charges over the Mt.Gox hack which could leave him in jail for a long time.

It was announced today that prosecutors in Tokyo have demanded that the previous head of the collapsed Bitcoin exchange Mt.Gox, Mark Karpeles is to serve a ten-year jail term for his crimes.

The Frenchman is looking at charges that he fraudulently manipulated data and walked away with millions worth in cryptocurrency which will most likely see him behind bars sooner rather than later.

Mt.Gox was once one of the biggest Bitcoin exchanges based in Tokyo but in 2014 the cryptocurrency exchange had $500,000 worth of digital currency disappearing from its virtual vault which is still a puzzle that needs to be solved.

After the case went on trial back in July last year, the 33-year-old is facing charges that he had embezzled around $3 million and changed the other data related to the crypto exchange.

But those charges aren’t directly related to how Mr.Gox lost over 800,000 coins which were, at the time worth just under $500 million.

According to the France24, the prosecutors from the Japanese capital have argued that Karpele’s alleged acts were "extremely vicious, as they completely undermined confidence in trading."

Of course, the former head denied these charges of fraud and embezzlement and when he read out his prepared statement he said: "I swear to God I am not guilty.”

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office has denied the reports and refrained from commenting on when the trial was expected to finish. In Japanese courts, the verdict and sentence are often handed down simultaneously.

During the same year that the cryptocurrency disappeared, Mt.Gox shut down after it admitted that the massive sum of coins was gone. The firm originally said that there was a bug in the software underpinning Bitcoins which allowed hackers to steal them. Karpeles had later claimed he found some 200,000 of the lost coins in a cold wallet which is a storage device not joint with any other computer, for those that don’t know.

Karpeles was arrested in 2015 but released the following year after $88,000 to secure his release. Mr.Gox had once said they took care of over 80 percent of the global Bitcoin transactions but they filed for bankruptcy protection after the cryptocurrency went missing which left a string of many angered investors wanting answers. Not only this but cryptocurrencies reputation was somewhat damaged after this.

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