Mark Karpeles, the former CEO of now bankrupt declared bitcoin exchange Mt Gox is looking forward to a minimum of 10-year sentence, as per Japanese prosecutors.
The prosecutors at the Tokyo District Court claimed that Karpeles utilized the customer’s funds for his own personal use, as stated in a report from The Mainichi on Wednesday.
As reported, he made an illicit transfer of 341 million yen (or $3 million) of customer’s money from a Mt Gox account to his personal account. This incidenttook place during the period of September-December 2013 according to the court
statement. The cash was used for “investing in a software development business for personal interest.”
Karpeles is also accused of playing a great role in “totally destroying the confidence of bitcoin users” as he manipulated the data on Mt Gox’s Trading System to Fabricate the balance.
Back in 2017, Karpeles pleaded not guilty in the court to the charges of fraud and data manipulation, and he also denied such allegations at the time.
Later in April 2018, he apologized for the company’s bankruptcy state, and mentioned
“I never imagined things would end this way and I am forever sorry for everything that’s taken place and all the effect it had on everyone involved.”
Mt Gox in April 2014, claimed to have been hacked for 850,000 Bitcoins and some of which were later found too. Consequently, they officially filed for a
liquidation and the case has been ongoing since then.
In July 2018, the creditors of Mt Gox sensed a victory when the court released a command for the approval of a petition to begin civil rehabilitation.
Last month, the trustee of Mt Gox, Nobuaki Kobayashi was intended to get the deadline extended for filing civil rehabilitation from October to December of the year 2018.