There are many scams happening in the crypto industry, especially BTC. If an investor is not careful, he will fall prey to cybercriminals posing as legal projects or platforms. Sometimes, some exchanges may run into bottlenecks and cause huge losses to the investors. This was the case with WEX, BTC-e and other exchanges which caused people to lose money.
Vinnik is a Russian citizen known as the operator of BTC-e, one of the early bitcoin exchanges. The exchange is linked to the hack of Mount Gox, the first bitcoin exchange to hit 744,408 BTC.
However, there was no recovery of the stolen funds, and the exchange closed in 2014. Vinnik never admitted to running BTC-e on his behalf, but said he was an employee of the exchange.
However, in 2017, US authorities shut down the BTC exchange and confiscated its servers. Vinnik was arrested while living with his family on a Greek beach. Since the time of his arrest, he has been dragged between three countries, the US, Russia and France. They are competing for Vinnik’s extradition, each of which has indicated different charges against him.
A CNN report revealed the extradition of Alexander Vinnik, a crypto exchange operator, from Greece to the United States. The crypto exchange operator is held in France, but his French lawyer Frederic Bellot disclosed his extradition.
After several attempts to extradite Vinnik, US officials withdrew his request a few weeks ago. With the request closed, Vinnik could be taken to Greece and then to the United States.
In 2020, a California court convicted Vinnick of several criminal offenses. These include ransomware scams, computer intrusions and hacking, drug distribution rings, identity theft schemes and corrupt government officials.
France sentences Vinnik to 5 years in prison for BTC fraud
France later succeeded in 2020 as he found Vinnik, and a French court sentenced him to 5 years in prison. Vinnik was charged with money laundering. But other charges such as conspiracy, extortion, and subverting automated data processing systems were dropped. Also, the Court of Appeal of Paris upheld the terms of imprisonment.
Vinnik’s lawyer, Bellot, did not explain the legal mechanism implemented by US officials during his extradition request. However, he mentioned that if the US withdrew its request, it would reactivate Greece’s request.
The launch of WEX, the offspring of crypto exchange, came a few months after BTC-e was shut down. WEX’s own trading pairs and website design were largely similar to BTC-e. It had gained access to the user base of BTC-e. Furthermore, it promised that it would gradually refund BTC exchange users for all their losses before the platform was shut down.
During the summer of 2019, WEX ceased operations. Users were complaining of withdrawal issues. Also, he noticed that the price of BTC is higher than what other exchanges are offering.
Additionally, the CEO of WEX, Dmitry Vasiliev, was repeatedly arrested in different countries. These include Croatia, Italy and Poland.
Featured image from Pixabay, chart from TradingView.com