Greece sends BTC-e operator Alexander Vinnik to US
Alexander Vinnik, an alleged Russian hacker accused of laundering $4 billion of criminal proceeds through BTC-e, has been extradited from Greece to the United States.
The accused cybercriminal faces charges of extortion, money laundering and involvement in a malicious software attack.
In 2021, the Paris’ Court of Appeals sentenced the 43-year-old Russian to five years in prison on money laundering charges. Vinnik’s defence team attempted to appeal the Court’s previous decision in May.
Vinnik is suspected of being one of the brains of Locky, a ransomware strain that hit French businesses and organizations on a large scale between 2016 and 2018.
The infamous software had allegedly yielded nearly $160 million for its creators, and then Vinnik laundered the resulting Bitcoin ransom payments through the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange.
The suspect’s lawyer in France, Frédéric Bélot, confirmed the news that that Vinnik is on his way to the US and that he will make an initial court appearance in the US Northern District of California.
This is the latest milestone in a case that spans multiple countries as Vinnik is also wanted in Russia. He was arrested in 2017 in Greece and then was extradited to France in 2020.
Greek justice minister signed a decision on the extradition of Vinnik to France in late 2019, which resolved a legal war in which Greece also had to consider rival extradition requests.
Vinnik’s lawyers appealed to the Greek Supreme Court, claiming that there are insufficient indications, let alone evidence against Vinnik, who has been held in custody since his arrest while vacationing in northern Greece.
Additionally, Moscow submitted an extradition request for Vinnik, who denies his country’s accusations of fraud but has consented to its extradition request.
Athens favored the French request
In 2017, Vinnik was arrested near the northern city of Thessaloniki on a US warrant, where authorities want him on several charges of fraud, including laundering stolen funds from the hack of the defunct bitcoin exchange, MtGox.
French authorities indicted Alexander Vinnik following an investigation that described him as the operator of BTC-e exchange, which was allegedly used to launder more than 130 million euros for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking.
Furthermore, US authorities said that he was the brain behind the collapse of Japan-based bitcoin exchange, MtGox, after which he laundered the stolen monies through BTC-e and another San Francisco-based exchange called Tradehill.
Vinnik’s arrest coincided with a series of US-initiated operations against Russian hackers after officials claimed that Russia interfered in the US presidential election to help Donald Trump take office, something Moscow denies.
