Alexander Vinnik Admits to Money Laundering Conspiracy via BTC-e

Russian national Alexander Vinnik has admitted to conspiring to launder money through the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e. This is stated in a press release from the US Department of Justice.

According to the report, Vinnik is responsible for losses amounting to at least $121 million. The department notes that from 2011 to 2017, the platform processed transactions worth $9 billion and served over a million users worldwide.

“Despite significant business in the US, BTC-e was not registered as a financial services provider with FinCEN and did not comply with KYC/AML policies as required by federal law. BTC-e collected virtually no customer data, making it attractive to those wishing to conceal criminal proceeds from law enforcement,” the press release states.

Vinnik’s lawyer, Alexander Buch, told TASS that Vinnik faces less than 10 years in prison.

“The negotiations culminated in a plea deal with the prosecution. We expect the prison term to be up to 10 years. He admitted guilt on a limited number of charges,” the lawyer explained.

According to him, during the sentencing hearing, the defense will attempt to further reduce the prison term by arguing that Vinnik has been in custody since 2017.

Vinnik was arrested in Greece in the summer of 2017. In 2020, he was extradited to France, where he was later sentenced to five years in prison and fined €100,000 for money laundering. Charges of extortion and creating the Locky malware were dropped.

In August 2022, Vinnik was taken to the US, where he faced a potential 55-year prison sentence. The court denied his release on bail.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the verdict in the case of WEX’s “red admin” Alexei Bilyuchenko (Ivanov) has come into force. Alongside Vinnik, as well as Belarusian and Cypriot citizen Alexander Klimenko, he owned the BTC-e exchange from 2011 to July 2017, according to the US Department of Justice.