Donald Trump fires the most notorious cryptocurrency criminal from Russia

Alexander Vinnik, co-founder of the BTC-e crypto exchange, who was found guilty of laundering $ 9 billion in the United States, has been released from an American prison in exchange for Mark Vogel, a US citizen convicted of drug trafficking in Russia. Arkadiy Bukh, Vinnik’s lawyer, confirmed that the exchange had taken place and that his client was on his way home.

According to the lawyer, Vinnik first arrived in Turkey, from where he was sent on another flight to the territory of the terrorist state.

Vinnik was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the United States. He was suspected of involvement in money laundering through BTC-e, as well as a possible connection to the hacking of the Japanese crypto exchange MtGox in 2014. After his arrest, he was tried in several countries. In 2020, Wynnyk was sentenced in France to five years in prison for money laundering and extortion, while in the United States he faced a term of up to 55 years.

In May 2024, Winnick pleaded guilty to money laundering and entered into a plea deal with the investigators that reduced his sentence to less than ten years. He may also have access to a crypto wallet with a large amount of bitcoins, making him an interesting figure for Russian law enforcement and those interested in these assets.