russians protest extradition of ex-head of cryptocurrency exchange to the US

In a statement on Friday evening, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that they believe the move is a violation of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

Russian Alexander Vinnik, also known as «Mr. Bitcoin,» was sent to the United States on Thursday after being extradited by Greece, where he was arrested while on vacation with his family in 2017. In 2020, he was extradited to France.

In August of this year, the Russian was sent back to Greece for further extradition to the United States. The day before, Vinnik’s family said that he was taken from there by private plane to Boston, from where he was taken to San Francisco.

«We are outraged by the unfriendly actions of the Greek authorities, who, under pressure from the United States, which launched a real hunt for Russian citizens in third countries under false pretenses, extradited our compatriot Alexander Vinnik in order to bring him before the American punitive law enforcement system,» Zakharova said. It seems that now it is not only Ukrainians who are being «punished».