Alexander Vinnik, an alleged operator of the now defunct cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering.
Vinnik's extradition to Russia, the United States and France requested
A Paris court has found Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik guilty of money laundering, and French prosecutors have also accused Vinnik of "extortion, conspiracy and damage to automatic data processing systems".
They claimed that, in particular, he helped develop Locky malware. These latest charges were dropped by the court today. Vinnik was extradited to France from Greece in early 2020, where he had been since his arrest in 2017 while at a resort near the city of Thessaloniki.
The arrest came at the request of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ defined it as the mastermind behind one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges, BTC-e (to trade cryptocurrencies as with Bitcoin Revolution), and charged him with charges of "computer intrusions and hacking, ransomware scams, identity theft schemes, bribery of public officials and building networks for the distribution of narcotics".
The exchange was closed at the same time, and its domain was seized by the FBI. However, the exchange soon re-emerged under the name of WEX, but only went bankrupt a year later. After Vinnik's arrest, the United States, Russia and France fought for his extradition, and in the end France won.
The US is still trying to get Vinnik's extradition, said attorney Frederic Belot, who represents Vinnik. He refused to explain how and when this request could be met.
Strategic disputes
Belot believes Vinnik would have had a chance for full acquittal if only he had participated in the court investigation this year. But he chose not to do so on the advice of his other two lawyers, Zoe Konstantopoulou and Ariane Zimra, who had worked with the defendant before Belot joined the case, Belot himself said.
He went on to state that all evidence of Vinnik's criminal behavior was provided to the French prosecutor by the FBI. The authenticity of those documents could have been questioned if Vinnik had taken a more active role in the investigation process.
“Alexander has decided to keep quiet and not ask or answer any questions from the judge. And the consequence we can see now is that Alexander is doomed, ”Belot said. Zimra retorted that Vinnik, on the contrary, "wanted to collaborate much more and had declared it", but did not have access to the file in Russian, his mother tongue, so "he could not defend himself or know what the prosecution had against him ".
Zimra did not clarify whether Vinnik actually answered the court's questions or not. Lawyers say Vinnik has two children in Russia and his wife died of cancer on November 11. The children, ages six and nine, now live with their grandmother, Vinnik's mother, Belot said.
