According to Reuters, Greek police, inward cooperation amongst United States authorities, latterly arrested a Russian man, 38-year-old Alexander Vinnik, for laundering at to the lowest degree $4 billion of ill-gotten money using bitcoin.
Police managed to arrest the Russian national at a pocket-size beachside hamlet inward northern Hellenic Republic later existence tipped off. Sources advise Alexander Vinnik was running pop bitcoin central BTC-e.
The arrest warrant was issued yesteryear the United States Ministry of Justice, together with reports advise the United States are looking to extradite Alexander. The warrant relates to running a criminal organization that, since 2011, has laundered billions. Police stated that he administered “one of the most of import websites of electronic criminal offence inward the world.”
According to Reuters, the mentioned website’s book was massive, every bit it had “7 meg bitcoins deposited, together with 5.5 meg bitcoins inward withdrawals.” Police seized mobile phones, 2 laptops, together with 5 tablets from Alexander Vinnik’s hotel room.
The homo has already appeared earlier a prosecutor inward Thessaloniki, northern Greece, together with is going to hold upward held inward custody pending exam of the extradition request. Under Greek law, according to Bloomberg, it tin cause got upward to 2 months until the extradition asking is examined.
Although details on the man’s alleged performance are yet scarce, a Greek police clit official pointed out that the homo was defendant of running a platform that converted proceeds of online ransoms, identity theft, revenue enhancement violations, together with to a greater extent than into bitcoin.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had no information on the case.
BTC-e’s admin?On July 25, 1 24-hour interval earlier word of Alexander Vinnik’s arrest surfaced, pop bitcoin central BTC-e went down. On Twitter, the exchanged cited “unplanned maintenance” inward its information center. The exchange’s engineers rapidly started working on the work but, together with then far, the central is yet down.
Moreover, BTC-e was founded inward 2011, simply similar the website Alexander Vinnik was reportedly running. The coincidences lined upward together with then much that a lot of users directly believe that Alexander was an admin at BTC-e. H5N1 recent tweet from Reuters seems to confirm the suspicion:
Users were too quick to indicate out a Forbes article nearly Google alarm nearly the recent ransomware boom, every bit it netted criminals nearly $2 meg a year. The article claims criminals cause got been using BTC-e to cash out their ill-gotten funds. It reads:
As for where the criminals are cashing out, 95 part of ransom funds were cashed out at the Russian central BTC-E.