Japan charges 30 people for exchanging NEM tokens stolen from Coincheck exchange in 2018

• Japan authorities arrest people exchanging XEM tokens for other cryptocurrencies on the dark web.
• The main characters behind the 2018 Coincheck hack are still at large.

The Coincheck hack was long forgotten until investigators in Japan revealed that roughly 30 people had been charged for exchanging the stolen NEM (XEM) tokens. All the suspects that have been arrested are said to have been aware that these tokens were stolen.

Investigations into the Coincheck hack continue

Nearly $560 million or 58 billion yen worth of NEM was stolen in a hack attack on Coincheck Inc., a digital exchange platform based in Japan. Investigations began, but the perpetrators of the heist remained at large.

According to the authorities, a dark web platform had been set up to exchange NEM for other digital assets. The arrested people were all involved in trading on the website, and all reside in Japan. However, the identities of the main culprits who carried out the hack are still unknown.

The investigations being carried out by the Metropolitan Police Department will go on. However, the police will soon stop looking into the people exchanging the tokens due to statutory limitations.

At the time of the arrests, 10 billion yen (using the exchange rate in 2018) had been exchanged. After exchanging XEM on the dark web platform, the suspects move the digital assets to other exchanges in Japan and abroad for more enormous profits.

NEM is trading at $0.21 at the time of writing after dropping from a weekly high of $0.26. These losses were not unique to the token as the entire market retreated massively over the last 24 hours. The ascending parallel pattern offers immediate support at the middle boundary.

Holding above $0.2 is critical for NEM to resume the uptrend. However, bulls are bound to slow down at the upper boundary and the 50 Simple Moving Average on the 4-hour chart.

XEM/USD 4-hour chart

If the channel’s middle boundary is lost as support, NEM may retest the lower edge. Losses are likely to extend to $0.18 before NEM makes a significant recovery towards $0.3.