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BTC-e Operator Vinnik's Five-Year Prison Sentence Upheld by Court: Report
Vinnik was successful in one aspect: The court exempted him from a fine of 100,000 euros.
The five-year prison term for Russian Alexander Vinnik, convicted in France on money laundering charges, was upheld by the Court of Appeal of Paris on Thursday, according to a report by TASS.
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- Vinnik, an alleged operator of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, was sentenced last December on the charge of money laundering. Other charges, including “extortion, conspiracy and harming automatic data-processing systems,” were dropped at the time of sentencing.
- The U.S. Department of Justice named him as a mastermind behind one of the first cryptocurrency exchanges, BTC-e, and indicted him on allegations of “computer intrusions and hacking incidents, ransomware scams, identity theft schemes, corrupt public officials and narcotics distribution rings.”
- Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 at the behest of the U.S., prompting a three-way battle among France, Russia and the U.S. for his extradition with France ultimately winning.
- According to TASS, Vinnik was successful in one aspect this week: The court exempted him from a fine of 100,000 euros (US$119,400). Prosecutors had sought a reduction of the amount due to concerns that Vinnik could not pay it.
CORRECTION (June 27, 21:16 UTC): Corrects conversion of fine into USD.
Read more: BTC-e Operator Vinnik Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison on Money Laundering Charges
Kevin Reynolds
Kevin Reynolds is editor-in-chief at CoinDesk. Prior to joining the company in mid-2020, Reynolds spent 23 years at Bloomberg, where he won two CEO awards for moving the needle for the entire company and established himself as one of the world's leading experts in real-time financial news. In addition to having done almost every job in the newsroom, Reynolds built, scaled and ran products for every asset class, including First Word, a 250-person global news/analysis service for professional clients, as well as Bloomberg's Speed Desk and the training program that all Bloomberg News hires worldwide are required to take. He also turned around several other operations, including the company's flash headlines desk and was instrumental in the turnaround of Bloomberg's BGOV unit. He shares a patent for a content management system he helped design, is a Certified Scrum Master, and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He owns bitcoin, ether, polygon and solana.
