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Alleged BTC-e money launderer Alexander Vinnik requests political asylum in Greece

21 January 2018 21:00, UTC

Russian national Alexander Vinnik, accused of several violations of American laws, has asked for political asylum in Greece, Russian media outlets tell. Apart from this, the lawyer of Mr. Vinnik intends to file a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights and overall to take various actions to ensure that the defendant does not go to the United States. The lawyer, whose name is Ilias Spirliadis, does not exclude the future scenario in which the suspect will be tortured in the latter country after extradition.

As it has to be reminded here, this Russian citizen has been accused of illegal financial operations via BTC-e, a cryptocurrency exchange, and charged with multimillion fines. According to the representative of the Internal Revenue Service published on the Internet in summer 2017, Vinnik is suspected of having stolen personal data, as well as providing assistance to drug traffickers and the international criminal syndicates in money laundering. Also, the agency noted back then that the end of this big “virtual currency” exchange will be a good message for cybercriminals and similar organizations around the planet.

The case of Alexander Vinnik can be grasped in detail with the help of the previous reports by Bitnewstoday (following this situation since the BTC-e shutdown). At the first day of the exchange closure the majority suspected the situation akin to the Mt Gox scandal or the fiasco of BitConnect which happened much later - premeditated bankruptcy in order to steal funds. But soon the site of BTC-e went back online, containing only a banner with symbols of the United States law enforcement agencies responsible for the case (see the screenshot above), and a message that the domain was confiscated as part of the investigation. Later, however, the exchange has managed to find a new leadership and even return a part of funds to users. The user base was not exactly small - this exchange was one of the most popular in Russia.