Japanese Court Orders Seizure Of $46K Worth Of Coincheck Hack Funds

A Japanese court orders a seizure of about $46,000 worth of Bitcoin and NEM token funds that were traced back to the Coincheck hack of 2018, recording the first-ever court-ordered crypto seizure in the legislation of the country as we are about to read more in the upcoming crypto news.

According to Kyodo, the branch of the Japanese court orders a protective order on the funds before the police-authorized seizure of the tokens. The Japanese court stated that the coins were deposited in a domestic crypto exchange by a 30-year old man who was charged with handling stolen tokens from the Coincheck hack at the start of the year.

The man was named as Takayoshi Doi, who was a doctor in Obihiro, Hokkaido. The police didn’t seem to believe the man was responsible for carrying out the attack but they charged him with carrying out a dark web transaction to purchase the tokens at a discounted rate while knowing that they have been stolen in the 2018 hack. The Coincheck hack is still the biggest one in the crypto industry which saw criminals taking more than $400 million worth NEM tokens from the platform.

The funds were reportedly frozen and will be transferred to the government for auction if Doi is proven to be guilty at his trial later this year. Doi was arrested along with another man but the Tokyo police said that there are still on the hunt for the attackers who are believed to have attempted to avoid the police by moving the tokens through a bigger range of domestic and overseas exchanges. Some of the stolen NEM tokens have been exchanged for other assets such as BTC.

Speaking about Japanese crypto news, A Japanese government office in the island of Hokkaido, got bomb threats over unpaid bitcoin ransom. The Numata Town Hall received the bomb threat from an unknown number a few days ago with the caller stating they placed a bomb on the second floor of the building and the attackers sent four emails on consecutive days last week as well. With the authorities didn’t make the payment, no explosion took place after a little time has passed or ever since. Local policemen are looking out for suspicious movement in and out of the building while they are also exploring the possibility of blackmail.