Mark Karpeles: Head of bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of manipulating data
The chief executive of bankrupt bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has been arrested by Japanese police on suspicion fiddling with transaction data to inflate the balance in an account under his control.
Read more: Why the end of MtGox is great news for Bitcoin
Mark Karpeles is being held in Tokyo for allegedly manipulating transaction records on Mt. Gox's system to falsely add $1m (£640m) into an account held under his name.
In a statement the Tokyo police said: "He [Karpeles] created false information that $1m had been transferred into the account, when in fact it had not been."
The 30-year-old French national was head of Mt. Gox – once bitcoin's biggest exchange – when it went bankrupt last year after losing over 850,000 bitcoin (200,000 were later recovered) worth more than $450m (£288m) due to malfunctions in its software.
At the time that amounted to over seven per cent of the cryptocurrency in existence.
Karpeles has not yet been formally charged with a crime.