Russian Operator of BTC-e Crypto Exchange Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering

A Russian operator of a now-dismantled BTC-e cryptocurrency trade has pleaded guilty to income laundering charges from 2011 to 2017.

Alexander Vinnik, 44, was billed in January 2017 and taken into custody in Greece in July 2017. He was subsequently extradited to the U.S. in August 2022. Vinnik and his co-conspirators have been accused of possessing and controlling BTC-e, which allowed its criminal shoppers to trade in Bitcoin with significant stages of anonymity.

BTC-e is claimed to have facilitated transactions for cybercriminals worldwide, getting illicit proceeds from many computer intrusions and hacking incidents, ransomware cons, identification theft techniques, corrupt community officers, and narcotics distribution rings.

The crypto exchange been given a lot more than $4 billion worth of bitcoin in excess of the course of its procedure, according to the U.S. Office of Justice (DoJ). It also processed about $9 billion-well worth of transactions and served more than 1 million users globally, numerous of them in the U.S.

In addition, the entity was not registered as a cash products and services company with the U.S. Office of Treasury in spite of doing sizeable business in the U.S. and did not enforce any anti-money laundering (AML) or Know Your Shopper (KYC) suggestions as needed by federal legislation, producing it an desirable alternative for criminals searching to obscure their sick-gotten resources.

Vinnik was beforehand charged with one rely of operation of an unlicensed funds assistance company, one depend of conspiracy to dedicate revenue laundering, 17 counts of income laundering, and two counts of participating in illegal financial transactions.

“BTC-e was one particular of the principal methods by which cyber criminals about the globe transferred, laundered, and stored the legal proceeds of their unlawful activities,” the DoJ stated. “Vinnik operated BTC-e with the intent to boost these illegal pursuits and was responsible for a decline sum of at the very least $121 million.”

Previously this February, the U.S. govt charged a different BTC-e operator, a Belarusian and Cypriot national named Aliaksandr Klimenka for funds laundering and working an unlicensed cash companies business.

Shortly pursuing Vinnik’s arrest in 2017, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Monetary Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced [PDF] it assessed a $110 million civil dollars penalty from BTC-e for violating AML legal guidelines and an extra $12 million penalty versus Vinnik.

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Some parts of this article are sourced from:
thehackernews.com