Mt. Gox says it is cooperating with police in missing Bitcoins probe

Mt. Gox has also filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States after U.S. customers with funds and Bitcoin frozen at Mt. Gox began a class-action against the exchange, alleging fraud by the company and its 28-year old CEO, Mark Karpeles. Another class-action suit was filed in Canada on March 16, alleging a lengthy security breach resulted in "the pilfering of millions of dollars' worth of Mt. Gox users' Bitcoins."

Both lawsuits also named Mizuho Bank Ltd, one of Japan's largest lenders, for allegedly aiding in a fraud by providing banking services to Mt. Gox. The plaintiffs say their money was held in an account or accounts at Mizuho. The bank has previously declined to comment on the lawsuits.

Forgotten wallet
Last week, Mt. Gox said it had found 200,000 "forgotten" Bitcoins - nearly a quarter of those missing - on March 7 in an old format "wallet" that it had thought was empty. That came after a U.S. judge in Chicago overseeing the U.S. class-action allowed some of Mt. Gox's Bitcoin movements to be tracked.

U.S. federal investigators are working multiple theories and have yet to rule out the possibility of involvement by someone inside Mt. Gox, a person with knowledge of that investigation has said.

Mt. Gox creditors had anticipated a different announcement on Wednesday after Eren Canarslan, a Turkish investment banker who said he had been in touch with Karpeles, tweeted that Mt. Gox would soon announce it had found an additional 670,000 Bitcoins.

© Thomson Reuters 2014