This week, Greek authorities, after his return from France, protested the move, even though Vinnik’s lawyers called the case a “judicial, diplomatic and humanitarian scandal.” extradition They proceeded.
Vinnik appeared in San Francisco federal court to face money laundering charges
Alexander Vinnik, the presumed co-founder and operator of the notorious crypto exchange BTC-e, was extradited from Greece to the United States on Thursday. The Russian has been charged in the Northern District of California and has already appeared in federal court in San Francisco, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. Kenneth A. Polite Jr. assistant attorney general for the department’s Criminal Division said.
After more than five years of litigation, Russian national Alexander Vinnik was extradited to the United States yesterday to face charges of operating BTC-e, a criminal cryptocurrency exchange that laundered more than $4 billion in criminal proceeds.
42-year-old Vinnik was arrested on a US warrant while on vacation in the Greek city of Thessaloniki in the summer of 2017. He had been indicted on 21 counts by U.S. prosecutors in January of the same year. Greece approved the extradition request submitted by the U.S., but the European arrest warrant sent him first to France in December 2019.
A French court sentenced a Russian crypto entrepreneur to five years in prison for money laundering, a term he recently served in light of his pretrial detention. In France, he was also charged with identity theft and extortion; in July, U.S. authorities withdrew a request to get Russia directly from France in an apparent attempt to speed up his transfer through Greece, which had already approved his extradition to the United States.
According to the U.S. indictment, the now-defunct BTC-e was “a significant cybercrime and online money laundering entity that allowed users to trade bitcoin with a high degree of anonymity and developed a customer base heavily dependent on criminal activity.” The exchange allegedly facilitated global cybercrime transactions and received proceeds from a wide range of crimes, including the Mt Gox hack, ransomware fraud, and even drug trafficking.
BTC-e and Vinnik were charged with one count of operating an unlicensed money services business in the United States and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering as well. The Russian is also charged with 17 counts of money laundering and two counts of involvement in illegal money transactions. The DOJ noted that his platform had no customer verification system and no anti-money laundering program as required by federal law.
Russia and its lawyers brand Vinnik’s extradition to the U.S. an “abduction” and “violent disappearance.”
Speaking to Russian news agency Tass, Vinnik’s French lawyer, Frederic Béraud, confirmed that his defendant had been handed over to a U.S. detention center after his return from France on Thursday morning following a decision by the Paris Court of Appeals investigative chamber. ‘He immediately transferred to another plane bound for the United States. That plane landed in Boston and then flew to San Francisco,” Bellow explained.
Alexander Vinik, who should be free on the basis of three decisions by the French judiciary, was transferred yesterday as a prisoner to Greece, where he was, as he had requested, and while seeking asylum, literally without being allowed contact with me as his interpreter, his lawyer He was “loaded” onto a private plane bound for the United States, said Zoe Constantopoulo, who has defended him in Greece and France, quoted by the Greek newspaper Ethnos.
Konstantopoulou was recently presented as a “special military operation” to protect the Russian-speaking population, “hostages” of the ongoing military conflict in NATO-backed Ukraine, where Moscow has been waging full-scale war since late February. He voiced fears that he might be detained by the United States. Western governments chose to ignore Russia’s own request for Vinik’s extradition.
The IT expert denies the U.S. allegations and maintains his innocence, but had previously expressed a willingness to return to his homeland and appear in court there. In Russia, he is charged with embezzlement of more than 600,000 rubles (about $10,000) and 750 million rubles (about $12.3 million) for “fraud in the field of computer information.”
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Justice Department said it “appreciates all efforts to secure the transfer of the defendant to the United States” by the Greek government and the DOJ, while Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharovasaid Moscow is “furious at the unfriendly behavior of the Greek authorities”and accused Washington of conducting “a real hunt for Russian citizens,” calling Vinnik’s hasty extradition a “kidnapping.” Although not mentioned in the DOJ announcement, the owners of BTC-e are also suspected of collaborating with Russian intelligence.
In his comments, Zoe Konstantopoulou described the case as a “judicial, diplomatic, and intergovernmental scandal” spanning several years, while referring to his extradition as a “violent disappearance from Greek territory” that “falls under mafia methods and criminal acts … . a serious violation of international law and Greek law,” and that it was done with the participation of two foreign countries. Vinik has sought asylum in Greece, and his lawyers are also trying to secure his release on humanitarian grounds. His wife died in 2020 and his two sons are now growing up without their parents.
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