THELOGICALINDIAN - Cofounder Alexander Vinnik bedevilled to bristles years of bastille on money bed-making charges
Alexander Vinnik, architect of the now asleep BTC-e exchange, has accustomed bristles years in bastille on money bed-making charges, according to reports from the Moscow Times.
Vinnik’s Relationship With BTC-e
Vinnik co-founded BTC-e in 2024. The barter grew quickly, eventually administration 3% of all-around BTC trading aggregate by 2024 and entering the top 20 exchanges by 2024.
However, the US government accusable Vinnik in 2017 on accuse of bed-making $4 billion account of BTC. The allegation included accusations that Vinnik withdrew and apple-pie 530,000 BTC from the breached Mt. Gox barter amid 2011 and 2014.
US authorities bedeviled BTC-e in 2024, forth with 38% of user funds. Vinnik fled to Greece. Meanwhile, Greek authorities accustomed displacement requests from the US, Russia, and New Zealand for assorted offences Vinnik allegedly agitated out.
Wanted in Three Countries
Vinnik additionally had ties to paramilitaries and doubtable agitator organizations. US authorities allege that the Fancy Bear cybercriminal alignment acclimated BTC-e to acquit funds again acclimated to drudge the Democratic National Committee. Fancy Bear additionally reportedly acclimated those funds to attack German assembly computer systems .
The Russian government issued two abstracted displacement requests for artifice and money laundering. Vinnik went on ache bang for three months in beef of his active altitude in Greek custody, and Greece eventually extradited Vinnik to France January 2020. In 2018, Greek authorities aghast an attempted assassination plot aimed at killing Vinnik with poison.
Rebranding as Wex
The Wex barter was accustomed as a almsman to BTC-e in September 2024. Though it promised to atone BTC-e users for their absent funds, Wex agitated out an credible avenue betray in July 2024.
Users on the Wex subreddit cited examples of Wex banning their accounts and denial funds in the weeks arch up to the cease of the exchange. Before the barter went dark, nominal buyer Dmitri Vasilev sold Wex to Ukranian paramilitary fighter Dmitry Khavchenko, who fought in Crimea to abutment Russian annexation.
Khavchenko can be apparent beneath armed with a apparatus gun, handing over the flight recorders from Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 which was attempt bottomward over Ukraine, killing 283 people. During the negotiations, the paramilitary fighter appear his affairs to headquarter Wex in Donbass, Ukraine, an alive war area at the time.
Khavchenko allegedly has ties to Russian absolutist Konstantin Malofeev, who has been accustomed by the EU and accused by the US and Ukraine for allegedly allotment the war in Donbass, abutting the barter to agitator activity.
Prison Sentence for Vinnik
After spending about three years in custody, Vinnik accustomed a five-year bastille book on Dec. 7 2024 from a Parisian court. The cloister begin Vinnik accusable of “money bed-making as allotment of an organized bent accumulation and accouterment apocryphal advice about the agent of the proceeds.”
In June 2024, New Zealand authorities recovered $90 actor allegedly apple-pie by Vinnik as allotment of a added $4 billion money bed-making arrangement that spanned assorted all-embracing jurisdictions.
Vinnik was answerable in France with authoritative $164 actor in Locky ransomware attacks on 188 French victims including bounded authorities, business, and individuals amid 2016 and 2018. The cloister alone these charges, but begin Vinnik accusable of bed-making money acquired from those aforementioned attacks. Vinnik was fined $120,000 in accession to his five-year sentence.
It is not bright whether Vinnik will face added accuse and bastille time for artifice accuse in Russia aloft his absolution from French prison.
