An intense fight between the United States and Russia over the extradition of a Russian cryptocurrency tycoon being held in Greece, is raising questions about the possible use of cryptocurrencies by spies.
The tycoon in
question is Aleksandr Vinnik, 39, who in 2011 co-founded BTC-e, an
international cryptocurrency-trading platform. BTC-e allowed users to
buy or sell several popular cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin and
litecoin, using Russian rubles, United States dollars, or European Union
euro currencies. Although headquartered in Russia, BTC-e’s servers were
located in Bulgaria, while its operations were conducted through its
offshore components in Cyprus and the Seychelles.
By 2015, BTC-e was reportedly facilitating just over 3 percent of the worldwide daily volume of cryptocurrency trading. But, according
to some sources, the company was also facilitating up to 70 percent of
worldwide criminal activity involving cryptocurrencies. Washington
alleges that the company was built on a model that relied heavily on the
activities of criminal entities, as the latter sought the ability to
conduct online monetary transactions without being tracked by
governments.
In 2017,
American authorities seized BTC-e’s website —a move that terminated the
company’s operations. Washington also prompted authorities in Greece to
arrest Vinnik, while he was vacationing at a Greek resort with his
family. The Russian co-founder of BTC-e is today in a Greek prison,
awaiting a decision by the Greek authorities to extradite him to the
United States. If this happens, he will be tried on 21 counts of
international money laundering and a host of other criminal charges.
Interestingly,
however, shortly after Vinnik’s arrest, the Russian government filed a
court order to have Greece extradite him to Russia, where he is
reportedly wanted for relatively minor fraud-related charges. What is
more, the Greek government was directly lobbied by no other than the
Russian President Vladimir Putin —an unusually high-level approach, when
one considers Vinnik’s trivial charges in Russia. France has also
sought to have Vinnik extradited there, instead of the United States.
What lies
behind these moves? There are many who believe that American authorities
moved against BTC-e after realizing that Russian spies used the company
to hide their traces while trying to meddle with the 2016 presidential
elections in the United States. A recent report
by the State Department’s RFE/RL news website claims that a number of
London-based observers from groups such as Global Witness and Elliptic
Enterprises believe there are strong links between Russian spy agencies
and BTC-e. American authorities have managed to access information about
the inner workings of BTC-e’s website. They are probably viewing Vinnik
as an intelligence asset, who can potentially shed light on the
company’s alleged role as a money laundering mechanism for Russian spies
—and probably others as well.
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