BTC-e Operator Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering

On Friday, the US Department of Justice announced that Alexander Vinnik, one of the operators of the former BTC-e crypto exchange, had pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering.

According to the DOJ, Vinnik was involved in operating BTC-e from 2011 to 2017, and during that time, the exchange processed over 1 million user transactions, totaling more than $9 billion in crypto. The DOJ also noted that BTC-e was connected to the infamous Mt. Gox hack, as it was used to launder 300,000 Bitcoins from the exchange.

BTC-e was shut down in 2017, and Vinnik was arrested at the same time. However, he faced a lengthy extradition process as multiple authorities from the US, Russia, and France tried to secure his extradition.

Eventually, France succeeded and sentenced Vinnik to five years in prison, before he was sent back to Greece and eventually extradited to the US. Initially, Vinnik denied being an operator of BTC-e and claimed he was only an employee.