Japanese authorities have arrested two men that were involved in the Coincheck hack. The men are accused of buying NEM tokens through a dark web site that violates the nation’s laws designed to fight organized crimes. The two individuals are said to have purchased the coins while knowing that the origin of these tokens was the Coincheck Hack.
Coincheck hack
Coincheck is a Japanese crypto exchange platform that was hacked in January 2018 in one of the largest crypto exchange hacks across the world. In the breach, the hackers made off with over 500 million dollars’ worth of NEM (XEM) tokens with the trail allegedly pointing towards Russia-based attackers.
Now the case resurfaces as Japan seems to have arrested two people involved with the hackers. As reported by Japan Times, Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department arrested two individuals; a doctor from Hokkaido and a company executive from Osaka Prefecture.
As per the police, the suspects purchased large volumes of NEM tokens at a great discount from dark websites in February and March 2018. The subjects were arrested after inquiries from crypto exchanges where the NEM was sent to revealed their activity. It is unclear how the police managed to pinpoint the destination of the funds.
After Coincheck was hacked in early 2018, its funds were divided into 13,000 wallets in order to obfuscate their activity. It is unclear whether the hackers were able to liquify all of their assets, however, many exchanges have increased their caution for the stolen crypto.Â
While the exchange suffered greatly from the hack, it managed to rebound, under its new owner Monex Group. The firm became one of the exchanges to be granted a license by the Japanese financial regulatory agency.
Featured image by pixabay.
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