Russian Accused Of Money Laundering And Running $4B Bitcoin Exchange Extradited to The U.S.
Greece extradited a Russian national who allegedly ran a multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency exchange that made profits from various hacking and extortion schemes.
Alexander Vinnik, who is in his early 40s, is accused of operating a cryptocurrency exchange known as BTC-e that allegedly did business with ransomware gangs, drug dealers, and identity thieves, according to the Justice Department.
He faces charges in the US Northern District Court of California of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money service business in the US, among other charges.
Vinnik’s extradition is a significant win for US law enforcement officials, who had been in a high-stakes extradition fight with Russia to gain custody of Vinnik.
The Russian Will Appear in Court
Frédéric Bélot, Vinnik’s lawyer in France, told CNN Thursday afternoon that his client was on a plane from Athens, Greece, to the US, where he will make an initial court appearance in the US Northern District of California. Bélot said that Vinnik maintains his innocence.
Vinnik’s extradition shows how US prosecutors have continued to pursue high-profile Russian cybercrime suspects at a time when any faint hopes of cooperation with Moscow on the issue have dimmed.
Law enforcement agencies arrested Vinnik in 2017 in Greece and extradited him to France. A court sentenced him five years in prison in 2020 for money laundering. But Vinnik has also been under indictment in the US since 2017, and the US and Russia filed dueling extradition requests from Greece.
BTC-e, which shut down in 2017, received more than $4 billion worth of bitcoin while it was operating, according to the Justice Department.