"Mt. Gox faced questions on handling client cash long before crisis" - Reuters exclusive.
"A bankruptcy administrator and police are seeking to determine how a Tokyo start-up that shot from obscurity to dominate global trade in bitcoin managed to lose more than $27 million in old-fashioned cash held in a bank as well as bitcoins worth close to $450 million at today's prices."
...
"In interviews with Reuters, current and former employees at Mt. Gox described the strains that emerged over the handling of customer money just as the firm was gearing up for expansion and bitcoin was edging out of the shadows as an investment and a means of online settlement.
By early 2012, a small group of Mt. Gox employees, all of whom worked on one-year contracts, began to worry that customer funds had been diverted to cover operating costs that they estimated to be rising. Those costs included rent in a Tokyo high-rise that also housed offices for Hulu and Google, high-tech gadgets such as a robot and a 3-D printer and a souped-up, racing version of the Honda Civic imported from Britain for Karpeles, people who have reviewed expenses said."
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"Karpeles was the only person at Mt. Gox who had access to the bank accounts, and each withdrawal request was handled manually, slowing the process, three former employees said."
With former employees talking to the press and police, jail for Karpeles looks a lot more likely.
