The United States will release Russian Alexander Vinnik in exchange for the American Mark Vogel, released by Russia. What is known about this, what was he accused of abroad?
What is Vinnik known
Alexander Vinnik was born on August 16, 1979 in the city of Kurgan, after graduating from school he moved to Moscow. He participated in the creation of the website “Celebration.ru”, later worked on servicing transactions between various electronic payment systems.
In 2011, the online trading platform for fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies BTC-E was founded, where Vinnik worked as a consultant. In 2016, the site was listed as banned in the Russian Federation.
Vinnik has been married twice. The second wife of IT specialist Alexander Shevchenko passed away after she was diagnosed with cancer. The man was left with two children.
What Vinnik was accused of by the US and France
Alexander Vinnik was arrested on July 25, 2017 while on vacation in Greece, he was placed in a pre-trial detention center in the resort area of Soloniki. The US charged him with laundering $4 billion through the crypto exchange BTC-E and sentenced him in absentia for 55 years. Later, charges against Vinnik were also brought in France on suspicion of extortion and fraud. The Russian himself did not admit guilt and claimed that he was only a consultant to the platform.
The Russian authorities made a request for extradition of the businessman, but it was rejected. In 2020, Vinnik was extradited to France. The state prosecutor asked to imprison the Russian for 10 years, but the court in Paris sentenced him to five years in prison. Later it was decided to transfer his case to the Greek jurisdiction, after which, on August 5, 2022, the businessman was extradited to the United States.
He was flown to Boston on a private jet and then transferred to San Francisco. According to Vinnik’s lawyer Arkady Bukh, Vinnik was never sentenced during his years in prison.
“My client is in a ‘pre-sentencing’ state, in a pre-trial prison. In the U.S. it is customary to postpone a case several times. We have already postponed the first time, and now we are waiting for a new hearing. I note that Vinnik’s case is one of the most voluminous, as it involves the world’s largest crypto-exchange. Negotiations are now underway to calculate the number of victims and the money they lost. The higher the amount, the longer the prison term,” the lawyer explained.
In what conditions Vinnik was kept
In December 2022, Alexander Vinnik reported that he developed health problems after eating in an American prison. In particular, he complained of frequent headaches. According to him, there is no free access to medicines in prison, so prisoners buy them themselves.
His mother Vera Vinnik also said that the prison where her son is held has terrible conditions.
What is known about Vinnik’s release
Reuters, citing a U.S. official, reported that the United States will release Alexander Vinnik in response to the return from Russia of American Mark Vogel, who was sentenced in Russia for 14 years for trafficking in banned substances.
Source: https://news.ru/society/ssha-osvobodyat-vinnika-v-ramkah-obmena-kto-on-takoj-v-chem-obvinyali-tyurma/