We’ve covered the Mark Karpeles arrest a couple of days back, as the Bitcoin community had finally received some great news, thanks to the fact that the Japanese authorities have arrested Karpeles, the CEO of Mt Gox, which was one of the world’s largest Bitcoin exchanges, where over 70% of the transactions were carried out 2 years ago.
After having been accused of fraud, money theft, money laundering and facing other criminal charges as well, we have some more information regarding his arrest. With this in mind, it looks as he was given some fresh criminal charges, after allegations stating that the stole around $2.6 million from his clients were proven to be true. With this in mind, the Japanese authorities went ahead and issued a new arrest warrant for the Frenchman Karpeles. Reports also indicate that he spent most of the stolen money in order to buy software rights, but also for a $50k luxury bed, cars and more, thus showing just how much Bitcoin were wasted because of this man.
Karpeles has obviously denied the allegations, but regardless of this, the new arrest warrant will likely keep him incarcerated for some more time. In terms of its trial, there hasn’t been too much information leaking out from the closed doors, but it’s quite likely that he will be sentenced to some years in prison once his trial ends. Karpeles was initially taken into custody earlier this month without being offered formal charges and kept there for three weeks; however, the fresh allegations of the Japanese authorities will keep him there for longer.
Regardless of how guilty he seems, we also have to keep in mind that the regulation over digital currency transactions is still vague, therefore, it is difficult for the Japanese authorities to keep him incarcerated and request trial if the legislation does not allow it. Nonetheless, most of the recent reports show that he had an important influence in the loss of over 850,000 Bitcoins, and obviously, over the fall of the coin’s popularity following the closing of his exchange.
In the last couple of weeks, many experts from all around the world have been struggling to understand more about how he managed to hide the money, and get away with it until now. Leaving aside the fact that the value is astronomic, many people from all around the world are also asking themselves whether such an event would be probable in the near future. What if the CEO of another large exchange decides to run away with the money and actually managed to escape? Will this bring down the cryptocurrency or make the community even stronger? These are questions that remain unanswered, but to which, we will be able to speculate answers following Karpeles’ trial over in Japan.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, what do you personally think about Karpeles’ arrest? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!