The Tokyo District Court ordered the seizure of $46,000 worth of bitcoin related to a hack of the Coincheck exchange in 2018, Cointelegrah reported, citing local outlet Kyodo. It was the first time Japan’s authorities have seized cryptocurrency.
Police said the bitcoin was held by a Hokkaido doctor and an Osaka Prefecture-based executive, both of whom were arrested in connection with the hack.
They are accused of knowingly purchasing the stolen NEM (XEM) through a dark web market, violating the country’s organized crime laws.
In January 2018, Coincheck suffered a record-breaking hack when $534 million worth of NEM was stolen from its wallets.
Research by Asahi Shimbun alleged that personal computers belonging to Coincheck’s employees were found to have been infected by a virus associated with Russian hackers.
The exchange suffered another data breach in June 2020, involving unauthorized access to the platform’s domain registration service, Cointelegraph Japan reported.