Bitcoin thieves arrested in Japan

Japanese police arrested two suspects of theft bicoins from CoinExchange today. Reportedly, a BTC worth 78 million yen was stolen, equivalent to about $ 710,000.

Theft in bulk

The Metropolitan Police Cybercrime Department arrested Yuto Onitsuka (25) and Takuma Sasaki (28) on charges of cyber fraud. Both are suspected of accessing the CoinExchange account in Tokyo.

Theft was committed in October 2018 a year before the stock market closed, when the price of Bitcoin stabilized around 6400 USD. The stolen BTC was tracked by foreign authorities on foreign and domestic exchanges, making it easy to identify the culprits.

Onitsuka and Sasaki have never met directly, only communicating through an online forum four to five years ago. It is assumed that part of the stolen BTC was exchanged for cash deposited to Sasaki’s bank account.

The stolen funds were used for travel and personal expenses without any attempt to disguise transfers

The company’s statement also suggests that the event was targeted and could have triggered CoinExchange bankruptcy. According to sources there suspects wanted to bankrupt the stock exchange due to internal struggle and disagreements. Several years of imprisonment may be a risk of fraud.

Summary

In the past, Japan has been the scene of major fraud and theft of cryptocurrencies from stock exchanges such as CoinCheck, Bitpoint or Remixpoint. Existing Japanese exchanges are so highly regulated because they have been strongly influenced by robberies, which are still under investigation for some.