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- Japan authorities are investigating potential involvement in the January 2018 hack case
- The Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asia recently published a report on January 22 which claimed that the police have arrested around 30 people
- The investigators have professed that Russian hackers might be the partially responsible part behind the entire hacking episode
Japan authorities are targeting individuals for their apparent involvement in the January 2018 hack case. The hack was executed in the field of Coincheck crypto exchange.
The details of the investigation
The Japanese news outlet Nikkei Asia recently published a report on January 22. The report claimed that the police have arrested or mentioned approximately 30 people in Japan to the local prosecutor’s office. The reason for the arrest was cited as their alleged involvement in hacking one of the country’s cryptocurrency exchanges.
In January 2018, the hackers embezzled a substantial amount of NEM from Coincheck. The estimated figure was around $534 million worth. This, in the history of the crypto-market, continues to be the biggest hack of a crypto exchange.
Report of Nikkei Asia on the Coincheck hack
Nikkei Asia reports that investigators traced accounts at traditional crypto exchanges through which the hacked NEM was converted as an unnamed source. The news outlet claimed that the NEM tokens’ total in instances involving the individuals could be around 20 billion yen. This would then translate into approximately $193 million at the time of issue.
The investigators have professed that Russian hackers might be the partially responsible party behind the entire hacking episode. Since the attacks happened three years back, there is a possibility that they were involved in infecting the personal computers of Coincheck staff with a virus. The respective virus could then have allowed hackers to control infected computers and access them remotely.
Japanese administrative authorities had managed various arrests in the context of the Coincheck hack until now. In March, the local police arrested two men who reportedly bought some embezzled NEM on a dingy market spot. This episode happened shortly after the attack transpired. The police claimed that the two had information regarding the origin of the funds. However, they still decided to buy the tokens at a substantial discount.
Thus, it will be interesting to see how the Japanese police manage to take the case forward. And the readers will have to wait and observe if the case gets resolved anytime soon.
Andrew is a blockchain developer who developed his interest in cryptocurrencies while pursuing his post-graduation major in blockchain development. He is a keen observer of details and shares his passion for writing, along with coding. His backend knowledge about blockchain helps him give a unique perspective to his writing skills, and a reliable craft at explaining the concepts such as blockchain programming, languages and token minting. He also frequently shares technical details and performance indicators of ICOs and IDOs.
