"Imagine someone stole everything in your store and you reported the crime to the police," says Nobuyasu Ogata, defense lawyer for Mark Karpeles. Karpeles, 33, is the former CEO of Mt. Gox, once the largest bitcoin exchange in the world.
"A year later," Ogata says, "the police suddenly arrest you for breach of trust, don't recover the stolen merchandise and let the criminal go free. That's essentially what happened with Mt. Gox."
In February 2014, Karpeles discovered the exchange was missing 850,000 bitcoins (around $480 million at the time). It didn't take long for the information to become public, with Mt. Gox eventually filing for bankruptcy on Feb. 28.