Areopagus, Greece: Vinnik is going to the US

BTC-e, a cryptocurrency exchange, was one of the most popular digital platforms in the Russian community, until in summer 2017 it suddenly went offline, and then, almost simultaneously, Alexander Vinnik was arrested — American law enforcement bodies state that this exchange was used for money laundering, and according to other reports, the Russian hacker group called Fancy Bear had its illicit finance stored there.

Vinnik and his attorneys, however, state that all American law enforcers were lying, and he had no financial relations with that exchange, actually working there as a tech supporter. The highest judicial authority in Greece, the country where the FBI agents apprehended Mr. Vinnik in cooperation with the regional police, has reviewed both the appeal filed by the defendant and the request of the Russian authorities to deport him to Russia, as he allegedly committed minor economic crimes there as well. Yesterday the Greek Areopagus declared that Vinnik is going nowhere else than the United States.

The Russian media outlet called RBC has prepared a detailed investigation of Vinnik’s activities on the Internet since 2000s. This report tells that this man was one of the people responsible for creation of this exchange, was known in the early Russian IT business sphere as “Sasha-WME” (because before bitcoins were invented, he was involved in activities connected with WebMoney), and the BTC-e exchange never really posted information about its management due to made-up reasons. After colliding with the FBI, it just renamed itself to WEX and found some new management, almost not trying to hide this.