Tokyo — The 32-year-old CEO of defunct MtGox pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to charges relating to the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoins and cash from what was once the world’s biggest bitcoin exchange. French national Mark Karpeles filed the plea in response to charges of embezzlement and data manipulation at the Tokyo District Court, according to a pool report for foreign journalists. MtGox once handled 80% of the world’s bitcoin trades but filed for bankruptcy in 2014 after losing about 850,000 bitcoins — then worth about half a billion US dollars — and $28m in cash from its Japanese bank accounts. In its bankruptcy filing, Tokyo-based MtGox blamed hackers for the lost bitcoins, pointing to a software security flaw. MtGox subsequently said it had found 200,000 of the missing bitcoins. Prosecutors said Karpeles transferred about ¥340m ($3m) from an account containing customer funds to an external account during September to December 2013, and increased the b...
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