Mt.Gox founder Mark Karpeles Sentenced to Over Two Years. Is This a Joke?

[wwzsocki]

...You guys live in paradise, you just don't know it...

To be honest first thing I thought about this cell/room that is not so bad and would be fairer if Karpeles spend his prison time in conditions like in the post above where he has to fight every day not only for food but for his life. Lucky for him he was in Japan and I haven't heard anything bad about prisons in this country in last decade. So it has for a sure minimal standard like in EU and this is like on this picture:

... no solid evidence of his direct involvement in a hack was found...
“The charge of electronic record tampering is true and deserves punishment, but there’s no criminal evidence of embezzlement

People are living in such a bad conditions that they consider this a hotel room with badroom and TV .

Doubts are always in favor of the accused and I assume that was the case.

[Artemis3]

You think that's bad? Look at the alternative:
-snip-

No, I'm not saying this is bad, inhumane, horrible or anything like that, although he was also interrogated for many, many hours straight.
All I was trying to say is that he was imprisoned for long time in a place that is far worse then regular jail cell.
Now imagine that Venezuelan prison but with one difference, solitude. Stone cold walls and you, nothing else but maybe droplets of water splashing here and there... I say madness in 3..2..1..

Unfortunately no, I wasn't lucky enough. But we cant compare honeycomb hotels, which are voluntary and usually with lot's of other guest as a company, to involuntary solitary prison cell, no matter how small.

That form of torture was actually used against dissidents here, just maybe not with the droplets (maybe). At the intelligence service building they were put in a deep basement (nicknamed "The Tomb") where you could not see the sun. They called it "white torture" as everything was painted in white and they had lights and a/c 24/7 (no natural ventilation down there), where you could quickly lose the concept of time. Many were taken while protesting or doing political activities, thrown on such place for weeks without seeing anyone, no lawyer, no family, nothing (and while that happened they denied having them detained there, of course.) This has been done to foreigners too, no matter the pleads of their respective governments. At points they negotiate and "expel them", there was this American who was imprisoned two years in conditions similar to the above pictures, i remember the stir it caused in the States because he was received by President Trump at the White House. Some people decided to "confess" whatever they wanted them to confess that gave the de-facto gov some political advantage, they just couldn't take it anymore.

Yes there is also the old fashioned abuse of all kinds, beatings, etc. But sometimes they do it in excess and the victim later appears "suicided"...

I don't think Japan has such an abominable system, its just a little different. The police interrogates you, but also the prosecutor who can also do his own investigation should he deem it necessary. You also have the right to remain silent and can remain so to both the police and the prosecutor until the trial.

[Xalata]

I have always had this thought that all these numerous exchange hacks that are going on are false and actually some are planned just to abscond with the funds of users who had their monies stored on their platform. The Mt. Gox case is a similar one and i wish they could have made him spent some time in jail to send a word of caution to other exchange team members to ensure maximum security on their exchange platforms.

[pixie85]

His cell is quite a change from the place he used to live in while his clients were crying over lost money.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=659422.0

A positive thing about Karpeles is that with the current price of Bitcoin they were estimating that there's going to be some money left after the victims are paid back but he said he doesn't want it.

[stompix]

His cell is quite a change from the place he used to live in while his clients were crying over lost money.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=659422.0

You realize that there are high chances he will live the rest of his life in a house that will make the last one look like a shack?

A positive thing about Karpeles is that with the current price of Bitcoin they were estimating that there's going to be some money left after the victims are paid back but he said he doesn't want it.

He has no choice and his opinion is irrelevant since the civil rehabilitation has been approved by Tokyo's Court, he will have to cough up all BTC not only $.
But I wonder when this sage will come to an end, we just had another extension for claims, probably it will not end this year.

I have to agree with others posters here, Karpeles can get off the hook and it looks like there's no justice. I don't know how Japanese court not find him guilty of embezzlement though, it still baffles me.

Because unfortunately, nobody was able to convince the judges that he is the one that hid or stolen the coins missing from the books. If the "stolen" coins and the way they went "missing" could have been traced back to him he would have been found guilty for that, but all that has been proved is that he tampered the records to cover the loses.

I'm disappointed with the outcome also but looking back on how things went, taking into account how easy is to make bitcoins disappear, how hard is to link addresses to people, I was becoming more and more sure he will get away pretty easy compared to the damage he has done. But absolutely free? I would have never thought of it.

[BurgerCash]

Why should this be a joke? Karpeles never stole any of the bitcoins, and in fact MtGox was hacked way before he took charge.
The real question is why is Jed Mccaleb not in jail as he's the reason for this mess. Instead he's making billions with his Stellar scam.

[odolvlobo]

I still believe that Karpeles has robbed Mr.GoX ...

Perhaps your beliefs are mistaken. The Japanese police could not prove that he stole money, though they probably wanted to. What additional proof could you have provided that would have changed the outcome?

[Indrawan77]

Its a bad call from the judges, the mt. Gox case has been causing a huge effect on bitcoin, many investors losing the money and losing trust to all exchanges, but the criminal mind just got sentence for two years even got the chance to walk away, he become rich and we got the consequences, what a joke

[Kakmakr]

The 650 000 BTC are small in comparison to the damage that he done to the progress and adoption of Bitcoin. Yes, it cannot be proven that he stole the coins, but there was gross mismanagement of the exchange and that caused all of the damage that was done. He should have received a harsh sentence, to put the message out there that mismanagement and a lack of implementing proper security measures, will not be tolerated in the future and people responsible for that will pay the price.

It is a slap on the wrist and a injustice, similar to what happened to the people who were involved in the near global economic collapse in 2008. {People like Jamie Dimon and his Bank buddies, who received huge bonusses as a reward for their failure}   

[alisafidel58]

Its a bad call from the judges

How can it be a bad call if they cant really prove that he took away all the coins back then?

the mt. Gox case has been causing a huge effect on bitcoin, many investors losing the money and losing trust to all exchanges

It was a long time ago and i doubt that it still have an effect to current investors, security features back then was really just a get go, compared today.

but the criminal mind just got sentence for two years even got the chance to walk away, he become rich and we got the consequences, what a joke

I also doubt that have been affected by the decision that the judges made. We dont know if he really became rich or not since his verdict is just over 2 year of imprisonment.

[wwzsocki]

I still believe that Karpeles has robbed Mr.GoX ...

Perhaps your beliefs are mistaken. The Japanese police could not prove that he stole money, though they probably wanted to. What additional proof could you have provided that would have changed the outcome?

Common if Karpeles would be cached on a hacking his own exchange then he has to be the dumbest person in the world.
Such a person would not run one of the first and biggest crypto exchanges in the world in the first place.  

He has computer knowledge and please take a closer look at this all other "hacked" exchanges. This is like a plague and I am 100% sure that most of them are an insider job to cover the bear market and bed ICO investments loses. Especially if the hack appeared during the last year.

If this is so obvious that hackers can exploit every exchange even the best once then why there are so many exchanges out there?
Especially in the crypto boom hundreds of new once popped up. We have to assume that some of them are legal and are opened by real companies and businessmen.

Don't you think that if hackers would be such a thread then nobody in their right mind would open a crypto exchange?

This is not some secret knowledge,  one just rent a company for a security audit before exchange opening to check the code and if the result is such that there is no chance to be safe, then one don't open such a business and period.

Cold wallets, storages, secure addresses, isolated servers and what else we have not heard yet? Still, our crypto gets hacked every day on crypto exchanges.

...numerous exchange hacks that are going on are false and actually some are planned just to abscond with the funds of users who had their monies stored on their platform...

... Yes, it cannot be proven that he stole the coins, but there was gross mismanagement of the exchange and that caused all of the damage that was done. He should have received a harsh sentence...

..they cant really prove that he took away all the coins...

[Albert Smith]

If japan legal system want to do the right thing they should focus on paying customers back asap.  The customers were always the victims of any crime that took place.

[ranman09]

“The charge of electronic record tampering is true and deserves punishment, but there’s no criminal evidence of embezzlement,” the court said in final verdict. At the least his reputation is destroyed.

This is the sad truth if there is no criminal evidence then everything is just suspicion in the eye of the law. If maybe a piece of evidence comes out then maybe the sentence would be a lot more than this.

[wwzsocki]

I remember talking to Mark and he explained some shit about how it is was a fuck up on a bot(?) I'm not 100% on that but it shows obvious negligence and I'm not sure if we should encourage jail time or not. Bitcoin wasn't as big then and definitely not nearly as understood. The peak was $1000 sure but a majority of GOX's time was around $100 or less, this was more during bitcoins Experiment phase.

This is not only the money we have lost on Mr.Gox but this incident crashed the market and people trust in BTC.

After all this, the market died for years and I personally just couldn't get back on track with crypto. I know that many other people, even famous once like Boxmining from YouTube, lost his trust and give up for a few years, like me. I have lost almost 2,5 years of crypto live. Missed ETH when it was on ICO but not only, I lost the trust and I was broke because literally all my BTC were at Mr.Gox at that time and that was 90% of my holdings. Not because I held there, no, I just wanted to sell and did it for a constant 2 days before the hack. I was just a few days too late. I was used to operate in such a manner on this exchange because this was something new for me today, I don't do such mistakes. After this BTC was expensive and I was broke. That was not the picture I have in my mind just a few weeks before the hack. You can clearly see the gap in my post history when I stopped and come back a few years later. So Mr.Gox hack f....d up not only cryptocurrencies market but many peoples lives and literally made a chain of bad events later on.

The 650 000 BTC are small in comparison to the damage that he done to the progress and adoption of Bitcoin...

[figmentofmyass]

White collar criminals often get very lenient sentences.  Unless you screw over other wealthy rich people like Bernie Madoff they just don't care.  I'm sure the hack was an inside job and completely fabricated.  Using hack is one of the easiest excuses to get away with because its difficult to prove if you are lying.

that seems doubtful at this point. analysts have been pouring over mt gox's database and blockchain data for years now and all signs point to theft on a massive scale. vinnik (the guy arrested for running BTC-E) even used his real ID documents to verify accounts used to exchange the stolen coins. see here:

https://blog.wizsec.jp/2017/07/breaking-open-mtgox-1.html
https://blog.wizsec.jp/2015/04/the-missing-mtgox-bitcoins.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l70iRcSxqzo&feature=youtu.be

what's more, it appears gox was already insolvent (to the tune of 80k bitcoins) when jed mccaleb sold it to karpeles in 2011: https://www.thedailybeast.com/behind-the-biggest-bitcoin-heist-in-history-inside-the-implosion-of-mt-gox

[Lucius]

The 650 000 BTC are small in comparison to the damage that he done to the progress and adoption of Bitcoin.

This is true, not only he make a huge financial loss for thousands of investors, but this event has had a significant impact on public perception about what is actually bitcoin. This is certainly shake a lot of potential investors, and even today it has a negative impact because users still wait for they money. Situation is today better in terms of security, people learn (at least some) that exchanges are only for trading, and that coins should be stored in desktop or even better in hardware wallets.

Regarding Karpeles, he does not act as a worried man at all, his life continued in a positive direction. In April 2018 he become chief technology officer for the world's largest virtual private network (VPN) service, London Trust Media.

Given his expertise in past jobs, users should think twice before they use this VPN.

[Beerwizzard]

Common if Karpeles would be cached on a hacking his own exchange then he has to be the dumbest person in the world.
Such a person would not run one of the first and biggest crypto exchanges in the world in the first place.  

Well, people should know that sometimes the first product is at the same time rough simply because its team and the entire community still don't know what dangers they and the entire industry will face.

Anyway, how long he should stay in prison? The entire life? Or maybe he should get a death sentance.

[wwzsocki]

...Anyway, how long he should stay in prison? The entire life? Or maybe he should get a death sentance.

No, he should give back what he has stolen!!! In the first place.

...he was charged with faking trading information at Mt.Gox over “several years” and embezzling $3 million in customer funds deposited with the company...

Later maybe, I don't know...        a death sentence?      

[Pab]

There is no justice in those cases
Look what did happen to Mintpal owners.They has been sentenced for two years of prison in England.Two years if holidays after mass stealing.Nothing for that kind of financial fraud
Yet another example is Cryptsy. Cryptsy owners has stolen millions from people and nothing happen to them
During old time  it was even kind of business .Run exchange and than scream oh we are hacked.It was never any hack funds were stolen by exchange owners

[gabmen]

Common if Karpeles would be cached on a hacking his own exchange then he has to be the dumbest person in the world.
Such a person would not run one of the first and biggest crypto exchanges in the world in the first place.  

Well, people should know that sometimes the first product is at the same time rough simply because its team and the entire community still don't know what dangers they and the entire industry will face.

Anyway, how long he should stay in prison? The entire life? Or maybe he should get a death sentance.

Well it should be more than 2 years that's for sure given the magnitude of the "theft". Though i don't think it warrants a lifetime sentence since most of the investors' bitcoins will be paid back. Probably somewhere between 10 to 15 years would suffice.