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Mt. Gox bitcoin chief Mark Karpeles arrested in Japan over missing millions

By Amy R. Connolly

TOKYO, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- The head of the collapsed bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox was arrested Saturday in the disappearance of some $390 million in virtual currency.

Mark Karpeles, 30, is suspected of using the exchange's computer system to falsify data about its outstanding balance. Investigators said he manipulated his own account at the company to make it appear $1 million was added to it. It is unclear how the allegation and the missing virtual currency are connected.

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Karpeles denies any wrongdoing. He has not been formally charged. In Japan, a suspect can be held for up to 23 days without a formal charge or bail.

The Tokyo-based Mt. Gox was once the world's largest bitcoin exchange platform by trading volume. It filed bankruptcy in February 2014, saying it had lost 750,000 customer's bitcoins and 100,000 of its own, worth some $390 million. It later said it found about 200,000 of the virtual currency. Karpeles said hackers were to blame for the lost bitcoins.

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