The Japanese Police have identified and retained in custody 30 people after their alleged involvement in illegal transactions worth $350 million in NEM tokens following the hacking of Coincheck.
In 2018, Japan-based crypto exchange Coincheck was hacked. As a result, the company lost 500 million NEM tokens, which were transferred via nineteen accounts. The Coincheck team declared that the NEM tokens were stored in a “hot wallet” and not in a cold one.
The exchange published 11 addresses to which the stolen funds were directed, but the owner remained unknown.
The token’s developers made sure that the exchange would automatically reject any funds that were connected to the hack by releasing a new tracking mechanism. Nevertheless, after the hack, regulators in Japan banned cryptocurrencies that offered a high degree of anonymity.
Two people, Takayoshi Doi and Masaki Kitamoto, were arrested in March 2020 as it was found they were connected to the theft.
The police found the individuals after the stolen crypto was placed for sale on the dark web with a 15% discount.