Former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles Faces a 10 Years Sentence In Alleged Embezzlement Case

Mark Karpeles, the former chief executive officer of now-defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, faces ten years in jail over alleged embezzlement, Japanese media report on Wednesday, December 12. According to a report from Nikkei, prosecutors claimed at the Tokyo District Court that Karpeles used customers' funds for his own personal use. According to the indictment, Karpeles embezzled a total of 341 million yen ($3 million) of customers' money kept in a Mt. Gox bank account by transferring it to his own account between September and December of 2013. He also allegedly manipulated data on his company's trading system to pad the balance. Reportedly, Karpeles "diverted company funds to such uses as investing in a software development business for personal interest" and "played a great role in totally destroying the confidence of bitcoin users." Karpeles pleaded innocent in the first hearing of his trial in July 2017, saying, "I swear to God I am not guilty." Later in April of this year, the