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Mt. Gox CEO Charged With Stealing $2.7 Million
An anonymous reader writes: After being arrested six weeks ago in Japan, Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpeles has now been formally charged with the theft of $2.66 million worth of clients' money. "Tokyo-based MtGox shuttered last year after admitting 850,000 coins — worth around $480 million at the time, or $387 million at current exchange rates — had disappeared from its digital vaults. The exchange, which once said it handled around 80 percent of global Bitcoin transactions, filed for bankruptcy protection soon after the cyber-money went missing, leaving a trail of angry investors calling for answers." Karpeles still denies doing anything illegal. The case is proving difficult for Japanese authorities to unravel, and they're taking it as slowly as they legally can.
They do tend to bring only cases they think they'll win - there aren't any plea bargains (which is a huge improvement over the current US justice system). That said, they also have a big problem with police/prosecutors relying on (often coerced) confessions to win convictions.
Also, there has been something of a tradition that many judges are inclined to trust the prosecutors/police, that's only more recently been whittled away at with some of the evidence that's come to light in old cases with DNA evidence brought in. Consider Hakamada Iwao, who was found guilty of murder, only to be exonerated 45 years later when DNA testing proved his innocence. One of the original judges reportedly considered committing suicide out of shame over it:
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03...