Mt. Gox ex-CEO pays close to $100K in bail to walk out of Tokyo jail

After spending close to 10 months in a Japanese jail, Mark Karpeles is finally out.

The former CEO of the now defunct Mt. Gox bitcoin exchange has been granted bail by the Tokyo District Court last week after he deposited the bail amount of ¥10 million (USD94,500), Japanese media outlets reported.

French-born Karpeles, 31, made international headlines in August 2015, when he was arrested in Tokyo on charges of unlawfully extracting and using private electromagnetic records. Police said Karpeles accessed the exchange’s U.S.-hosted trading platform in 2013 and altered the data in his personal account twice.

Japanese authorities slapped Karpeles with additional charges of embezzlement after investigators discovered the Mt. Gox executive transferred some ¥321 million—worth $2.7 million at the time—of clients’ funds to other accounts. A good portion of the money, according to reports, were used to fund Karpeles’ personal expenses, including his rent and to pay for the women “he met at venues that offer sexual services.”