{"id":19577,"date":"2024-05-04T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-04T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coinengineer.io\/?p=19577"},"modified":"2024-05-04T12:51:12","modified_gmt":"2024-05-04T12:51:12","slug":"btc-e-co-founder-pleads-guilty-to-laundering-9-billions-in-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coinengineer.net\/blog\/btc-e-co-founder-pleads-guilty-to-laundering-9-billions-in-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"BTC-e Co-founder Pleads Guilty to Laundering $9 Billions in Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Alexander Vinnik<\/strong>, one of the Russian co-founders of BTC-e, has pleaded guilty to a bitcoin <a href=\"https:\/\/coinengineer.net\/blog\/binance-executives-money-laundering-trial-delayed-in-nigeria\/\">money laundering<\/a> conspiracy. A broader probe revealed significant illegal trading operations for 2011\u20132017.<\/p>\n<p>Under <strong>Vinnik<\/strong>, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/opa\/pr\/btc-e-operator-pleads-guilty-money-laundering-conspiracy\">US Justice Department (DOJ) stated<\/a> that BTC-e processed over $9 billion in transactions and had more than one million customers, many of whom were Americans. According federal district court judge will sentence him under the United States Sentencing Guidelines and other statues.<\/p>\n<p>According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the platform cleaned up computer hacking, ransomware attacks, and drug trafficking.<\/p>\n<p>The DOJ determined that BTC-e did not register with FinCEN and did not comply with AML or KYC regulations.<\/p>\n<p>BTC-e was notorious among criminals because of its shortcomings.\u00a0<strong>Vinnik<\/strong> has set up a lot of shell companies and financial accounts across the world to move money formed illegally on BTC-e.\u00a0At least $121 million went missing through crime.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vinnik<\/strong> has been struggling in court for over five years for his alleged BTC-e masterminding. The cryptocurrency exchange reportedly profited from criminal activities that cleaned up $4 billion of Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, <strong>Vinnik<\/strong> was extradited to France since he had been found in Greece under a U.S. warrant for money laundering in 2017. In France, <strong>Vinnik<\/strong> got a five-year term for money laundering, not ransomware.<\/p>\n<p>The lawyers of <strong>Vinnik\u2019s<\/strong> made an ineffective appeal that <strong>Vinnik<\/strong> was a worker of the exchange but not included in the illegal actions of BTC-e. After sitting in a French jail for two years, she was sent to the U.S. on August 5, 2022.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Vinnik<\/strong> was extradited to the US with the help of the Greek government, as per the Justice Department. Before, <strong>Vinnik<\/strong> wanted to make a deal between Russia and the USA about him.<\/p>\n<p>Executives in crypto exchanges too.\u00a0Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, was sentenced to 25 years for seven felonies on March 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexander Vinnik, one of the Russian co-founders of BTC-e, has pleaded guilty to a bitcoin money laundering conspiracy. A broader probe revealed significant illegal trading operations for 2011\u20132017. Under Vinnik, the US Justice Department (DOJ) stated that BTC-e processed over $9 billion in transactions and had more than one million customers, many of whom were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":19578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5869,5870],"class_list":["post-19577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-alexander-vinnik","tag-money-laundering"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BTC-e Co-founder Pleads Guilty to Laundering $9 Billions in Bitcoin - Coin Engineer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alexander Vinnik admits guilt in massive crypto money laundering scheme. Feds say exchange cleaned billions for hackers, drug dealers &amp; more.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/coinengineer.net\/blog\/btc-e-co-founder-pleads-guilty-to-laundering-9-billions-in-bitcoin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"BTC-e Co-founder Pleads Guilty to Laundering $9 Billions in Bitcoin - Coin Engineer\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Alexander Vinnik admits guilt in massive crypto money laundering scheme. 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