The court of the Greek city of Thessaloniki on Wednesday, October 4, granted the US request to extradite Russian citizen Alexander winnick, reports TASS with reference to the Athens news Agency.
38-year-old Russian, who is suspected of laundering € 4 billion in bitcoins, was arrested in July at the hotel in Chalkidiki, on the basis of the international warrant, reminds Prototema. At the request of the American court investigators will be transferred to the seized winnik computers, phones and media.
As expected, his lawyers would appeal within 24 hours. Russia also protested against the extradition of its citizens.
– InoPressa: in the centre of the crime was a bitcoin exchange
Allegations of money laundering and fraud with bitcoin, the Russians presented the Grand jury in San Francisco. At the same time the Prosecutor General’s office sent to Athens for giving winnick home as in Russia, concerning it criminal case on major fraud.
According to the American Themis, Alexander Vinnik, organized electronic marketplace for illegal exchange transactions with cryptocurrency and thus laundered funds. In addition, it is alleged that he used a site called BTC-E to identity theft. It is assumed that he laundered the funds obtained as a result of hacking hacking the now inactive Japanese digital currency exchange Mt. Gox, which conducted transactions with bitcoins. Russian citizen faces up to 20 years in prison.
According to the Prosecutor General’s office, winnick, “acting by fraud, through the Internet under the pretext of delivery of equipment, stole cash amounting to more than 600 thousand rubles” from an unnamed organization. August 10, 2017 was issued a ruling on bringing him as a defendant, he was declared wanted. Ostankino court of Moscow on August 11 in absentia elected him a measure of restraint in form of detention.
Winnick came to the Greek village on the Aegean sea on vacation with his wife and children. Us authorities tracked him down via mobile phone. After his arrest the site BTC-E has ceased to exist.
The detained Russian is considered the “brain” of the criminal group, which in 2011 operates “one of the largest cybercrime Internet sites in the world.” It is known that BTC-E was established in 2011. The founders are considered to be two Russian programmer under the names Aleksey and Alexander, who previously supposedly working in Technopark “SKOLKOVO”.