Today Nobuaki Kobayashi, the trustee in charge of the recovery of the funds of the famous Mt. Gox exchange, which went bankrupt in 2014, revealed that he had asked the US Department of Justice for some information about Alexander Vinnik, an operator of the Russian BTC-e exchange, which closed in July 2017.
Kobayashi requested details of the DOJ’s investigation into BTC-e and Alexander Vinnik, currently imprisoned in a Greek prison for money laundering. Vinnik is also the main suspect for the Mt. Gox hack.
Kobayashi would also have initiated a $100 million civil lawsuit against Vinnik last summer.
Mt. Gox and the bankruptcy of BTC-e
The latest news about the bankruptcy of Mt. Gox and the attempt to recover the stolen funds date back to last July when the investment fund Fortress Group said it would buy bitcoins from the creditors of the exchange.
In 2014, in fact, a hacker stole 850 thousand bitcoins from the platform, which marked its definitive closure. Since then, a lawsuit has been pending in Japan and the Tokyo District Court has issued an order setting the deadline for the reimbursements on October 28th, 2019.
When the exchange went bankrupt, 1 BTC was worth about $450, while today the value is more than 20 times higher. Creditors are therefore hoping to receive all their bitcoins and not the counter value in FIAT dating back to the date of closure of the exchange.
Meanwhile, the former CEO of Mt. Gox would be trying to launch a new startup, Tristan Technologies Co.
