Greece stops extradition of money laundering suspect Alexander Vinnik

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Greek Supreme Administrative Court suspendedthe decision to extradite a Russian suspected of laundering billions of dollars in digital currency to France, pending appeal. It is reported by Reuters.

The decision to send Vinnik to France led to a second hunger strike. Recall that the first lasted 88 days, starting in November 2018.

According to authorities, Vinnik used the original cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e to launder approximately $4 billion worth of BTC.

Vinnik, in turn, denies the accusations.claiming that he was a technical consultant to the exchange and not its operator. His lawyer noted that the extradition decision was “unfair” and amounted to a “death sentence.”

The Minister's decision notes that paragraphextradition could be the United States and, finally, Russia, which means that, upon completion of the trial in France, he could be sent specifically to the United States.

The date Greece made a decision on the appeal of Vinnik at the time of writing is not defined.

BTC-e was launched in 2011, and processed about 5% of the total Bitcoin trading volume. According to additional research, about 95% of all illegal payments were made through this platform.

According to the lawsuit, numerous write-offs fromBTC-e administrators' accounts went directly to Vinnik's personal bank accounts. Authorities later seized the BTC-e domain, fined it $110 million, and collected a fine of $12 million from Vinnik.