Bitcoin Forum

Mark Karpelès Faces Bitcoin Embezzlement Verdict on Friday, Faces 10 Years in Prison

https://www.ccn.com/mark-karpeles-bitcoin-embezzlement-verdict-friday-10-years-prison

Mark Karpelès, the disgraced former CEO of defunct bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox, faces ten years in prison as a Tokyo court prepares to hand down a verdict on embezzlement charges this Friday.

Karpelès is accused of syphoning $3 million of client money to his own accounts and faking exchange data. The 33-year-old maintains his innocence on all counts.

If convicted, it will be an explosive end to the Mt. Gox saga. Bitcoin’s most notorious exchange lost 850,000 bitcoins (worth $500 million) and filed for bankruptcy in 2014. The collapse of the world’s largest crypto exchange at the time caused the price of bitcoin to plummet into a long crypto winter.

Whatever the outcome, and considering Japan's fondness for convicting people runs at 99% it's a given, it's far from the end of the Gox saga. I'm sure there's plenty more intrigue to come and none of the victims have seen a penny yet. I'm enjoying seeing the law slowly catch up with all the pricks who thought they were immune because it's 'on the internet'.

It should not be the only punshment for him. Serving only a prison term is something the white collar criminals would be happy about as their business operations are simply not stopped from that point to top ot all chances are he won't be serving all 10 years in prison because of parole. The best thing the government should do is to permanently ban him from doing any kind of business in their country so that his power to enter the market would be entirely gone. If that happens even though he moves out of another country to create a business his reputation will quickly follow him.

I get the impression parole is a pretty rare occurrence. It's certainly nowhere near automatic like it is in other places.

I find it strange that such an advanced country has a legal system that seems so unfit for purpose. A 99% conviction rate and no juries does not sound reassuring to those in search of actual justice.

Yeah, this isn't going to be an easy parole system. I think, even with all the objective view (this is supposed to be a court of law after all), this case was a watershed moment for Bitcoin in Japan. In their society and with their value system, this was a particularly low kind of dishonour, and the shame they felt after Mt Gox will still sting. As unfair and unjust as the system may be (my own country abolished the jury system in the 1990s so I think I know how that foes), I'm sure there's still a system and Japan is as fair as it gets.

Ranked 15th globally on the Rule of Law Index (http://data.worldjusticeproject.org/#/groups/JPN), and even higher score in criminal and civil justice). There are flaws with the jury system too, I mean, had they been one, I'm inclined to think Karpeles would have had it worse.

My thinking goes in the similar line! 10 years of prison time is nothing. Mark is just 33 years old and after spending 10 years, he will be just 43 years old. So banning him from entering any such business for the rest of his life, would be appropriate. He is the maker of the first ever fraud in crypto market so his punishment should be exemplary. This might save a lot more people from getting duped again.

https://twitter.com/ynakamura56/status/1106362801193279488

Guilty. Quelle surprise. Two years and six months in prison. The sentence is suspended though who knows whether that means the same thing as it does in other jurisdictions. I guess that Vinnik geezer is up next.

And on another source from Japan I see "four years parole" immediately. That's the suspended sentence term. So he doesn't go to prison but has to report back and be on good behaviour for the next 4 years. If he's naughty during that time, then he goes to the slammer for 2 years +. I don't know about you guys but this just feels like he got away with it.

Innocent on charges of embezzlement and breach of trust, basically.

he was only found guilty of tampering with financial records. he dodged the heavier charges. i'm pretty sure he won't serve any time on the suspended sentence......that seems to be the consensus. i imagine he'll keep his nose clean if it means staying out of prison.

as for vinnik, i hope for his sake something happens soon. he's been on hunger strike in greek prison and isn't looking so good these days: https://www.apnews.com/d21ce40549044f88bdcc1286c763e508


he did already serve a year in prison and seemed quite shaken after he got out.

i don't want to see him rotting in jail. the guy was running "magic: the gathering online exchange" back when bitcoins were just magic internet money that no one took seriously. the gox thefts go all the way back to 2011. he fudged some numbers and made a misguided attempt at keeping his insolvent exchange alive.......i don't think that's worth crucifying him over. he's not the one who stole the coins.

Nah. He fucked up the futures of thousands of people through his own laziness and incompetence. No one with that little regard for the trust placed in them deserves an out. It's never been a game.

No one should've trusted him. It took me all of five minutes of googling in mid 2013 to vow never to go anywhere near it ever, but he had the choice of several paths and he took a toxic one.

Since he's not been convicted of the heavier charge I guess what he has is appropriate but I would not be sad if he'd gone down for longer.

bullshit. the people using an exchange as a bitcoin wallet fucked themselves over. they need to take responsibility, man.

i've lost coins to hacks and exit scams. it was my fault. not my keys, not my coins. this is/was all part of the wild west culture, which was certainly the context in 2011-13 when the hacks occurred and mark started covering them up.


that's what i've been saying. everyone who trusted him needs to take some responsibility. all i see is people playing the victim and refusing to take responsibility for their money. it's the antithesis of bitcoin.

Yeah things haven't changed much haven't they. People back then were using MtGox as a wallet, just like the use modern exchanges as wallets too. What can we do? it has been said a million times already.

Karpeles isn't going to do anything wrong ever again, im sure he has learned the lesson, and he is smart enough to know there's ton of pissed off people at him so he will know better. When he did his AMA on Reddit, he actually said that he wants to give the coins back to the people and will do everything as possible to do that.

Jail time may have actually been a blessing for him. He actually looks like a healthy man now, back then he looked like an overweight manchild.

Btw, anyone saw the news of Brock Pierce wanting to resurrect MtGox? my popcorn is ready, MtGox saga continues.

Well, however we all see it, justice was served. Whether or not it was enough probably won't matter any more. Let's see what Karpeles makes of his gift. If he really were the solid guy he insists he is, he'll use the next four years to do something good. Nothing can make amends for the thousands of people who got ruined by his mistakes, but he has every opportunity to redeem himself. We all deserve second chances I guess. I know I'd feel less forgiving had I been a Mt Gox user with funds lost.


By all means. Doubt Japan, if they'd reissue/reinstate the licence, would ever grant it to him though, not if they did their due diligence.

The worst part isn't so much that whatever entity is trying to resurrect MtGox, but the potentially tens of thousands of traders that will be using it. People here never learn of anything about past hacks and thefts.

People here are like little kids. If you tell them to not do something, they'll do it just for the heck of it. Cloud mining despite all its scams and warnings is still super popular among people.

Imagine if MtGox follows the trend of freebies. People of all sorts will rush to claim their free $10-$20 in whatever crypto or balance. The only thing we can do here is continue warning people. If it helps out even 1 person it's already worth it.

And that is the cue there as to why Brock wanted to resurrect Mt. Gox, because they can still make money out of those noobs investors are traders. I also wonder why would have happened if Brock was able to acquire Mt. Gox prior, went it is still functional. Would this whole drama could have been avoided? I remember there was an attempt on his part back then in 2013-2014 to get it from Mark but was not successful.

"Mere" serving a prison term is enough to spoil one's reputation and I'm sure is going to also have such effect on him, his public image will be affected. In some jurisdictions, an ex convict is debarred from certain public positions too.

Anyways, the law will always follow its course. Unfortunately, if the law of Japan or Tokyo specifies a 10 years prison term for the offense, that will not change because of him.

This is what I say is a slap in the wrist for such crime committed. If this was just a guy who rob a store and pointed a gun to someone he would likely face 15+ years in prison without even earning a dime on what he stole. This white collared criminals are protected by corporation laws separating the juridical entity (corporation) and the CEO and owners itself, the sad thing is he probably have more than 3 million dollars in his account after all things clears out after him lying low for a while. I didn't even see how the 10 years max will be handed to him as simply I know that the juridical system just take lightly on similar cases as compared to simple robbery and theft committed by normal persons.

how is that a legit comparison? he was tried on embezzlement charges and found not guilty. he didn't steal anything. he bought an insolvent exchange which then got hacked again and became deeply insolvent, and he tried to cover it up. that's shitty but it's not comparable to armed robbery. it's not even in the same universe.

The Tokyo District Court may not have found him guilty on his embezzlement charge but don't you think falsifying data to mislead the public about the current position of Mt. Gox isn't enough to merit him a long term prison sentence? Armed robbery is just a small time crime compared to what he did. Mark Karpelès isn't even new to finding himself in trouble of the law again and again, he is not the type of man who you think has no experience on breaking any kind of law. He still got cases in the U.S. pending and during 2010 he was found guilty of fraud in France and he is lucky to be out of jail until now.

Seems odd to me that this guy is getting this much heat in what has essentially been modern corporation practice for ages. I know the risk of keeping anything on an exchange, or leaving anything less than secured. I didn't lose anything during the Mt. Gox issue, so maybe it doesn't hit me as hard as those involved, so I can't say exactly how i would feel, but as someone that has a decent amount of btc on an exchange, i know that if it got hacked or exit scammed, i'd kick myself in the ass more than anyone else.
Bitcoin was supposed to be underground, meaning we had our own selves to blame for how well it went, or if it goes to zero.
I do wish that the Mt. Gox hadn't shaken so many peoples faith in the long-term valuation of btc, as every bad news headline only sets us further back from either another batch of btc millionaires, or the alleged mass adoption so many people seem interested in.

It don't matter what we think or what he did and didn't do. The verdict is in and that's pretty much it. I've never really understood the lenience that large scale fraud attracts in terms of penalties but it's the way of the world.

There may be future wallopings from other jurisdictions coming his way. Gox touched many parts of the world.

I just got carried away that another white collared criminal got away from jail, the way I see it is that the judicial system has a different view from business crimes compared to violent crimes that face the maximum punishment. It works as if its like they have unlimited warnings from the punishments and penalties they received. The suspended four years he received was only like a probationary period in which he needs to stay clean and after that he can do whatever the hell he wants, its like they given him time to plan and prepare his next big move.

There are countless double standards and strangenesses.

Just the other day a bunch of blokes in the UK got 3-5 years each for selling hacked TV boxes for pubs to livestream football games free. People who mutilate or cripple children get less time than that here. Similarly you're likely to get the same amount of time for habitual shop lifting from one place as if you'd conned tens of thousands of people out of their life savings.

I think the legal system is more lenient on white collar crime because it's the people they tend to mix with who carry it out.

i don't see a long term prison sentence as any sort of justice. what will that accomplish? serious question.

also, i guess we have very different views about violent crime. i think using a lethal weapon to perpetrate violence and intimidation against a victim is fucking horrible. i'm much more open to imprisoning violent criminals threatening (and sometimes ending) peoples' lives in the streets than someone who falsified data at a bitcoin exchange back in the "magic internet money" days. who is the bigger threat to society?

let's keep in mind, when the mt gox keys were stolen (in sept 2011), bitcoins were worth $5 a piece and no one took it seriously at all. it was the wild west. people are acting like mark stole $12,000,000,000 worth of bitcoin. just.....no.

and what's with the whole culture of playing the victim? any given customer never would have lost coins if they did basic due diligence and/or didn't trust other people to hold their coins. i was around in 2013-14 and i avoided gox like the plague because they were infamous for slow-paying customers. why doesn't anyone take any responsibility for their mistakes anymore? people were too negligent to look into the company they do business with, too negligent to secure their own bitcoins, and so they got parted from their money. they missed out on a bubble because of their own carelessness and now they want to see someone burn for it. i get it, but i don't agree with it. and i also think this attitude is indicative of a larger problem: so many bitcoin users flat out refuse to take responsibility for their own money.

You're right with what you said because what he has done cannot be retrieve through the sentence. With that been said, there's something I dont get here because the last time I checked Tokyo district court found him guilty of the charges and they suspended the jail sentence.