BTC-e founder pleads guilty to conspiracy to launder $9 billion

A federal district court judge will determine his sentence based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Alexander Vinnik, the Russian co-founder of alleged illegal cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, has pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy involving the cryptocurrency exchange. The admission came after a wider investigation revealed extensive illegal activity at the exchange between 2011 and 2017.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) reported that during Vinnik’s leadership, BTC-e processed more than $9 billion in transactions and had a user base of more than 1 million worldwide, many of whom were from the U.S. A federal district court judge will determine his sentence based on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The DOJ highlighted that the platform was used to launder funds obtained from various criminal activities, including computer hacking, ransomware attacks, and drug trafficking.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, an investigation revealed that BTC-e operated without the necessary legal compliance measures, including registering with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and implementing anti-money laundering (AML) or know-your-customer (KYC) protocols.

These flaws made BTC-e popular with individuals seeking to conceal monetary transactions from law enforcement. In addition, Vinnik was found to have established numerous shell companies and financial accounts around the world that allowed him to illegally move funds through BTC-e. The criminal losses from this activity totaled at least $121 million.

Over the past five years, Vinnik has been embroiled in legal proceedings for his role as the alleged mastermind behind BTC-e, a cryptocurrency exchange that allegedly profited from various illicit activities that used the platform to launder approximately $4 billion worth of Bitcoin.

Vinnik was arrested in Greece on money laundering charges in 2017 via a U.S. warrant and extradited to France in 2020. In France, Vinnik was cleared of the ransomware charges but was convicted on money laundering charges and sentenced to five years in prison.

Vinnik’s lawyers unsuccessfully appealed the sentence, insisting that Vinnik was merely an exchange employee and had no involvement in BTC-e’s illegal activities. After serving two years in a French prison, he was extradited to the United States on August 5, 2022.

The Justice Department acknowledged the Greek government's cooperation in extraditing Vinnik to the U.S. Vinnik had earlier tried to secure a prisoner swap for him as part of a prisoner trade deal between Russia and the United States.

U.S. authorities have brought similar criminal charges against cryptocurrency exchanges and their executives. On March 28, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison on seven felony charges.