Meet The Central Figure in The Massive Bitcoin Theft “Mr. Bitcoin”

• On July 25, 2017, Alexander Vinnik, a Russian IT specialist, was detained during his vacation in Greece at the request of the US 
• “Mr. Bitocoin” claims to be innocent during an interview even when the evidence of his theft crimes is placed on the table.

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian IT specialist, was detained during his vacation in Greece at the request of the United States. He was accused of laundering $4-9 billion through the no longer existing crypto exchange BTC-presidential election.

Vinnik was an owner and operator of BTC-e. The feds say, BTC-e didn’t comply with anti-money laundering laws that require financial businesses to collect information about their customers and report suspicious activity to the authorities.

BTC-e has always had a reputation for secrecy. Until recently, all that was known about its ownership was from a 2013 Coindesk article stating that the exchange was run by “Russian programmers Aleksey and Alexander.”

The exchange was rumored to be based in Bulgaria, but it used a variety of shell companies and intermediaries to hide its operations. Vinnik laundered money for Russian nation-state hackers. Fancy Bear the Russian hacking group involved in the 2016 U.S. presidential election hack.

The scale of BTC-e was huge. Between 2011 and 2016, the feds say, the site received 9.4 million bitcoins. That’s more than $20 billion at today’s prices, though bitcoins were worth a small fraction of their current value in BTC-e’s early years.

I spoke with Alexander Vinnik, whose famous #crypto criminal case will unfold in #SF next month. https://t.co/uNlq2Pnftc

— Jeff Elder (@JeffElder) August 26, 2022

The BTC-e deposits were made to several different BTC-e accounts. These accounts, in turn, were directly linked to a variety of different BTC-e administrative accounts, accounts to which only BTC-e administrators and/or operators would have had access. According to the investigation some of these deposits were then cashed out to conventional bank accounts controlled by Alexander Vinnik.

The operators of BTC-e have not responded to Vinnik’s arrest. Mr. Bitcoin is the center of attention in this game of charades between the US, America, Russia, France Greece, and other nations.

Vinnik was prosecuted in France, served time in a French prison, then was sent back to Greece. Local criminals were plotting to poison the Russian suspect, Alexander Vinnik. He is reportedly now “forbidden” from receiving any items and cannot even contact other inmates.  There are people who are extremely interested in him not going back to Russia. The assassination was ordered by some unknown person from Russia.”

On December 19, 2019, Greek Justice Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras ruled that Vinnik be extradited first to France, then to the United States, and eventually to Russia. In December 2020, a Paris court sentenced him to five years in prison and ordered a fine of more than 100,000 euros.

Vinnik himself said back in Greece that he would agree to return to Russia and stand a court trial in his homeland. In Russia, he is charged with embezzlement of over 600,000 rubles ($9,800) and computer fraud worth 750,000 million rubles (some $12.2 million).

An unknown source  said that Vinnik has admitted his crimes and is “ready to give testimony in Russia and assist the investigation.”The Russian media outlet stated that Vinnik’s lawyer planned in January 2018 to appeal the extradition order to the European Court of Human Rights. Vinnik’s famous Russian lawyer, Timofei Musatov, died mysteriously as he was about to go to Greece to seek Vinnik’s extradition to Russia.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman:

“We are outraged by the unfriendly action of the Greek authorities, who, under the pressure of the United States indulging in a literal hunt for Russian nationals in third countries, have extradited our fellow countryman Alexander Vinnik to reprisals of the American punitive justice,”

Vinnik isn’t worried about being poisoned while in jail or his lawyer dying mysteriously.  

He speaks sadly :