French officials filed preliminary charges of money laundering and extortion against Alexander Vinnik on Friday. The Russian national was extradited to France on Thursday after spending more than two years in pre-trial detention in Greece.
Alleging violations of the Bank Secrecy Act, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) filed a civil suit against BTC-e founder Alexander Vinnik on July 25, seeking to recover more than $88 million in customer funds from the exchange and $12 million in from Vinnik personally.
A Japanese court handed Mt. Gox founder Mark Karpelès a suspended sentence for tampering with financial records, but acquitted him of the far more serious charges of embezzlement and breach of trust on March 15.
Bitcoin Suspect Could Shed Light on Russian Mueller Targets (Bloomberg) Remember the name Alexander Vinnik? He ran BTC-e, the cryptocurrency exchange that appeared all too willing to launder money for Bond villain-type characters. He was taken down by FinCEN, with the help of the IRS, and now sits in a Greek prison. Some of the bitcoins Vinnik allegedly helped launder belonged to a Russian hacking unit now under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller. See? It’s all connected. The baroness, the ICO fiasco, and enter Steve Wozniak (Financial Times) Michelle Mone, aka Baroness Mone, of Mayfair in the City of Westminster, OBE, sits in the British House of Lords…
