The founder of BTC-e Vinnik will return to Russia after 7 years of imprisonment in three countries.
Alexander Vinnik, co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, is returning to Russia after years in an American prison. His release was made possible after an exchange between Moscow and Washington, which included a return trip for teacher Mark Vogel, who was serving a 14-year sentence for attempting to smuggle medical cannabis and hash oil. Vinnick, nicknamed “Mr. Bitcoin” and “the cryptocurrency kingpin” in the Western press, has been accused of laundering several billion dollars.
The Russian was released in secret
The first information that it was Vinnik who would be the second person involved in the exchange between the two countries began to spread when Vogel was already drinking beer at an audience with US President Donald Trump. The Wall Street Journal’s sources first reported about the Russian’s impending release, and this information was later confirmed by Reuters.
“[On February 11] something was presented at the trial, but the judge forbade discussing it. As of today, Vinnik is still in the United States, but we are actively engaged in ‘lobbying’ for his release – I would not use the word exchange, because in the usual sense exchange is to conditionally exchange someone on a bridge, as it has happened several times in Dubai and other countries,” Vinnik’s lawyer Arkady Bukh told reporters.”
Vinnik’s mother was also initially unable to shed light on the release story. In a conversation with journalists, she admitted that she had spoken to her son on the phone on February 11, but the conversation was reduced to a discussion of the weather and school performance of his children. She stated that they did not talk about returning to Russia.
On February 12, in the evening Moscow time and afternoon US time, another of Vinnik’s lawyers, Frederic Bello, told TASS that the case was closed and that Vinnik was already at large and would soon go to Russia. This was confirmed by Kommersant’s sources, according to whom Vinnik was taken to New York, from where he is due to fly to Moscow.
I have received confirmation from the State Department. He has been released
Frederick Bello
Alexander Vinnik’s lawyer
.
“We confirm that the Russian citizen who will be returning home very soon is Alexander Vinnik, a non-violent crypto-criminal,” said White House spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt.
Vinnik was accused of running BTC-e
Vinnik’s name was not known to the general public until July 25, 2017, when the then 37-year-old Russian was arrested at the request of the United States in a small village in northern Greece, where he had come to vacation with his family. The US warrant was issued back in January of that year.
The list of charges included 21 items, the main ones were related to the cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, which the detainee, according to the U.S. authorities, managed since 2011. The project was considered quite successful: as of 2015, the site accounted for up to three percent of the entire global cryptocurrency exchange. According to the U.S. side, a significant part of this volume was given by transactions somehow related to the cybercrime world.
4 billion dollars
was laundered through BTC-e, according to U.S. prosecutors
.
“Vinnik facilitated a large number of crimes. He helped steal personal information, instigated drug trafficking, and laundered the proceeds of cybercrime groups from around the world,” Don Fort, then head of criminal investigations at the US Internal Revenue Service, said in 2017.
The arrested man himself, even after months in a Greek prison, insisted that he did not understand what claims the law enforcers could have had against him.
“Since I haven’t read the indictment, I can’t say what I’m accused of and what my attitude to it is,” Vinnik told RBC through his lawyer, adding that he was well aware of another criminal proceeding opened against him in Russia.
Vinnik was shared by three countries
For the next 3.5 years, Greek justice decided which of the states that wanted the Russian should be favored. In addition to the United States, France and Russia sought Vinnik’s extradition. In his home country, one of the BTC-e executives was charged in a case that the Metropolitan Police had been investigating since the fall of 2016.
At the time, it was about the embezzlement of 600,000 roubles from the company Vosstroykompleit, to which Vinnik, according to the investigation, was supposed to supply equipment, but failed to do so. After his arrest in Greece, the Russian was suspected of fraud for 700 million rubles. Vinnik himself, after learning about the attempts of the Prosecutor General’s Office to have him extradited home, expressed his desire to face Russian justice.
In October 2017, Russia’s requests were considered by two Greek courts at once – one agreed to extradite Vinnik, the other did not. In parallel, another judge approved the extradition of the accused to the United States. The point was to be set by the Supreme Court of the country, but at that moment French investigators appeared on the horizon. Paris also requested extradition, charging Vinnik with laundering 130 million euros.
Athens eventually made a half-hearted decision. In December 2019, Greek Justice Minister Costas Tsiaras ordered Vinnik’s successive extradition first to France (apparently because of the EU’s agreement on simplified extradition of suspects), then to the United States, and after that to Russia.
Source: https://lenta.ru/news/2025/02/13/vinnik/