A US jury on Wednesday indicted a Russian man as the operator of a digital currency exchange he allegedly used to launder more than US$4 billion for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking.
Alexander Vinnik was arrested on Tuesday in a small beachside village in northern Greece, according to local authorities, following an investigation led by the US Department of Justice, along with several other federal agencies and task forces.
US officials described Vinnik in a Department of Justice statement as the operator of BTC-e — an exchange used to trade the digital currency bitcoin since 2011.
They alleged Vinnik and his firm “received” more than US$4 billion in bitcoin and did substantial business in the US without following appropriate protocols to protect against money laundering and other crimes.
US authorities also linked him to the failure of Mt. Gox, a Japan-based bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after being hacked. Vinnik “obtained” funds from the hack of Mt. Gox and laundered them through BTC-e and Tradehill, another San Francisco-based exchange he owned, they said in the statement.
It was not possible to reach Vinnik for comment.
“Just as new computer technologies continue to change the way we engage each other and experience the world, so too will criminals subvert these new technologies to serve their own nefarious purposes,” said Brian Stretch, US Attorney for the Northern District of California, where Vinnick was indicted in the statement.
Greek police described Vinnik as a “an internationally sought ‘mastermind’ of a crime organization.”
His arrest is the latest in a series of US operations against Russian cybercriminals in Europe. Last week, the US Department of Justice moved to shut down the dark Web marketplace AlphaBay.
The prosecutions also coincide with intensified scrutiny of Russian hackers after US intelligence officials determined that Moscow interfered in last year’s presidential election using cyberwarfare methods to help Donald Trump, something Moscow denies.
During his time in the digital currency market, US authorities allege Vinnik faciliated crimes, including hacking, fraud, identity theft, tax refund fraud, public corruption and drug trafficking.
BTC-e, which has been out of service for more than a day, attributed this to “unplanned maintenance.” In a tweet on Wednesday after the arrest of Vinnik, BTC-e said it would restore service in the next five to 10 days.
The exchange is one of the oldest virtual currency platforms. It allows users to trade bitcoin pseudonymously against a variety of fiat and virtual currencies, and is known in crypto-currency markets as having relaxed standards for checking users’ identity and for not collaborating with law enforcement.
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
EUROPE ON HOLD: Among a flurry of announcements, Intel said it would postpone new factories in Germany and Poland, but remains committed to its US expansion Intel Corp chief executive officer Pat Gelsinger has landed Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a customer for the company’s manufacturing business, potentially bringing work to new plants under construction in the US and boosting his efforts to turn around the embattled chipmaker. Intel and AWS are to coinvest in a custom semiconductor for artificial intelligence computing — what is known as a fabric chip — in a “multiyear, multibillion-dollar framework,” Intel said in a statement on Monday. The work would rely on Intel’s 18A process, an advanced chipmaking technology. Intel shares rose more than 8 percent in late trading after the
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure