Igor Ashmanov: BTC-e representatives came to me behind the “roof”

Russian businessman Igor Ashmanov commented on the assumption of the owner of the payment systemSergey Mayzus MoneyPolo on the connection of the WEX cryptocurrency exchange, the successor of BTC-e, and Neklis-Bank, owned by his wife Natalya Kasperskaya.

According to him, “Maizus is a crypto thief who is trying to piece together a story from hints, because there are no facts.”

He said that after the arrest of AlexanderVinnik, whom US authorities suspect of laundering at least $4 billion through the BTC-e exchange, representatives of the platform «tried to find a government cover in the Russian Federation».

«They also contacted us.I saw them exactly twice in my life - once in Rhodes at a conference, once in Moscow, two years ago. We told them that we do not provide such roofing or lobbying services; we consider bitcoins evil. They knew that Natalya had a bank, they came up with a theory on how to buy it and make it a clearing bank for some of their crypto projects. They were also denied this»- said Ashmanov.

The entrepreneur claims that the BTC-e management was still able to find protection from other people, but they “took away the exchange and balances” from them.

«At the same time, the balance sheets were not theirs initially either. A thief stole a thief's club, in short. We had nothing to do with this toxic dirt at all»,- concluded Ashmanov.

In the comment under this post, Sergey MayzusHe cited a passage from the correspondence of Timofei Musatov, a lawyer for Vinnik, and ex-CEO of the WEX exchange, Dmitry Vasiliev, in which they discuss the possibility of including the latter on the Board of Directors of Neklis Bank.

«Vasiliev writes: “After the meeting today, the bank once again proved that they view us only as a cash cow.” Somehow these two stories don’t add up at all,— Mayzus wrote.

In response, Ashmanov stated that this correspondence was fabricated.

«These are the tales of Vasiliev, youraccomplice. You present his words as evidence, but there is nowhere to put marks on him. It’s you there with this Vasiliev, who essentially stole the balance sheets, handed them over to whoever knows, trying to build an alternative history»,- he retorted.

He emphasized that neither he nor his wife«have never owned a single bitcoin in my life, never cashed out a single bitcoin, and never received any money from your dirty sphere at all».

Note that Timofei Musatov for many yearsprotects the interests of Natalia Kaspersky and her husband Igor Ashmanov. The lawyer himself denies the involvement of the latter in the BTC-e case and any connection with Vinnik. Nevertheless, the companies CREDITSAILS LLC (co-founder of Vinnik) and LLC Informatik (co-founder of Ashmanov) are located in Moscow at the same address in Bolshoi Kozikhinsky Lane.

ForkLog will continue to monitor developments.

Recall, by the assumption of Sergei Mayzus TimothyMusatov used the funds of WEX customers to close the cash gap at Neklis Bank, which was part of a money laundering scheme from the exchange.