The BTC-e inventor pleads guilty to using stolen bitcoins.
Vinnik’s guilty plea follows a larger investigation that uncovered substantial criminal activity on the exchange from 2011 to 2017
The U.S. Department of Justice stated that, at the time Vinnik had control over the helm, the exchange had cumulatively processed more than $9 billion in transactions and had more than one million users worldwide, with multiple of them being from the U.S. .
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The DoJ alleges that BTC-e was the platform that was used to launder proceeds generated from various illegitimate activities. Additionally, the DoJ’s investigations revealed that the exchange was not set up with proper compliance, as it was not registered with FINCEN.
The DoJ also stipulated that the exchange had not undertaken anti-money laundering or know-your-customer processes while it was still in operation at the material time.
.In 2017, the WizSecurity investigation revealed BTC-e’s involvement in the Mt. Gox hack, and the case took off. A newly released investigation of the theft has already revealed that hackers used the exchange to launder stolen Bitcoins’ many ways they had been working with BTC-e and/or Vinnik and were later discovered to be involved in this illegal activity. On 28 February,
the Department of Justice or DoJ, accused Vinnik and Belarusian Aliaksandr Klimenka in the BTC-e case. Klimenka laundered $4 billion to an unregistered MSB and attempted to conspire to launder money.
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The Department of Justice said that BTC-e servers in the United States were essential instruments for illegal activities, which were allegedly assisted by Klimenka and his business, Soft-FX, at the time of Klimenka’s indictment.
Vinnik was detained close to Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2017, after BTC-e was shut down by US authorities. The Russian-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur was accused of money laundering and other crimes after being extradited to the United States in 2022.
After an effort to bring BTC-e back to life and rename it WEX, the business ultimately failed, preventing many users from being able to withdraw their money.
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Former BTC-e technical administrator and Vinnik collaborator Alexey Bilyuchenko was fined and given a three-year, six-month prison sentence in 2023 for embezzling money from the exchange.
