According to Reuters, Greek police, in cooperation with US authorities, recently arrested a 38-year-old Russian man, Alexander Vinnik, for washing at least $ 4,000,000,000 of bad money with Bitcoin.
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Police managed to arrest the Russian citizen in a small beach town in northern Greece after being warned. Sources suggest Alexander Vinnik was running popular Bitcoin Exchange BTC-e. The arrest warrant was issued by the United States Department of Justice, and reports suggest that the US is seeking to extradite Alexander. The guarantee refers to the execution of a criminal organization that, since 2011, has bleached billions. Police said it ran "one of the most important e-crime websites in the world." According to Reuters, the volume of the website mentioned was massive, as it had "7,000,000 bitcoins deposited, and 5,500,000 bitcoins in withdrawals." Police confiscated mobile phones, two laptops and five tablets from Alexander Vinnik's hotel room.
The man has already appeared before a prosecutor in Thessaloniki in northern Greece and will be detained pending the examination of the extradition request. Under Greek law, according to Bloomberg, it may take up to two months before the extradition request is examined.
Although the details of the alleged operation of the man are still scarce, a Greek police official said the man was accused of running a platform that turned income from online bailouts, identity theft, tax violations, and More in Bitcoin.
In Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said it had no information on the case.
¿The administrator of BTC-e?
On July 25, a day before the news of the arrest of Alexander Vinnik emerged, popular Bitcoin Exchange BTC-e went down. On Twitter, the trader cited "unplanned maintenance" in his data center. Exchange engineers began to work quickly on the problem, but so far, the exchange remains non-existent.