According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Alexander Vinnick, the creator of the now-defunct BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange, will be extradited from Greece, where he faced his first trial on allegations of money-laundering.
Vinnick is reported to be 40 years old and of Russian nationality. Vinnick is now on his way to the U.S. from Athens, Greece, to face trial in the Northern District of California, according to his French lawyer, Frédéric Bélot.
Vinnik operated the BTC-e exchange from 2011 to 2017. During that period, the exchange traded over $4 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC), and U.S. prosecutors have accused the exchange of dealing with ransomware gangs, drug dealers and thieves.
Along with these accusations, Vinnik has also been charged with running cryptocurrency service without a license in the US since 2017. At that time, the U.S. Treasury Department levied a civil penalty of $10 million against BTC-e and a personal fine of $10 million against Vinnik.
Vinnik was extradited to France in 2020 and sentenced to a five-year prison term on allegations of money-laundering there. Prior to his most recent extradition, he has finished serving a two-year sentence.
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