It is a second judicial round which begins in the affair which has opposed for more than two years France, Russia and the United States, against a background of espionage, computer hacking and strong diplomatic tensions. The Paris prosecutor’s office has requested a criminal trial for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected of large-scale bitcoin scams and at the heart of a diplomatic and judicial standoff.
Claimed by the courts of these three countries, this 40-year-old man, arrested in Greece in 2017, was finally handed over at the end of January to the French judicial authorities, who had been investigating him since 2016, after a long procedural battle.
In its final indictment dated June 29, the prosecution asked that he be tried for extortion and attempted extortion, money laundering in an organized gang and criminal association with a view to committing an offense punishable by ten years’ imprisonment, learned Agence France-Presse (AFP) to the public prosecutor. He also wants him to appear for having broken into automated data processing systems and entered or modified data, and has requested that he be kept in pre-trial detention.
Mr. Vinnik, who rejects the charges against him, is particularly suspected by the French justice of being behind the Locky ransomware, of which several dozen individuals, communities and companies were victims between 2016 and 2018. This malicious software, which blocks and encrypts the data and unblocks them only against payment of a ransom, would have caused an estimated damage, in 2018, to approximately 135 million euros.
It is now up to the investigating judges to decide whether or not to refer him to court. Contacted by AFP, his lawyer in France declined to comment.
Twenty-one Charges in the United States
The Russian national was arrested at a tourist resort in northern Greece in July 2017, on the basis of a US arrest warrant. In January of the same year, a US federal prosecutor had indeed pronounced 21 charges against him, while Mr. Vinnik was suspected by the United States of being the mastermind of BTC-e, one of the main platforms – bitcoin exchange forms around the world until it is closed.
Concretely, it was a huge washing machine for dirty money used since 2011 by various thugs (hackers, identity thieves, drug traffickers) to the tune of 9 billion dollars (8.2 billion euros). The Russian faces more than fifty years in prison in the United States.
“Through Mr. Vinnik’s efforts, BTC-e has emerged as one of the primary means by which cybercriminals across the world launder the proceeds of their illicit activity.”, wrote the American prosecutor Brian Stretch in his indictment, consulted by AFP.
“BTC-e facilitated crimes, including hacking and ransomware, fraud, identity theft, fraudulent tax refund schemes, public official bribery and drug trafficking. “
For their part, the financial police of the US Treasury, FinCen, had civilly ordered BTC-e to pay a fine of 110 million dollars. Vinnik himself was fined $ 12 million.
Diplomatic negotiations
Also demanded by the French justice, which had issued a European arrest warrant in 2018, and Moscow, Mr. Vinnik asked to be extradited to Russia, where he is being prosecuted for a fraud of 9,500 euros, without commensurate with the ‘BTC-e case. But the European mandate having priority for Greece, he ended up being handed over to the French authorities, who immediately put him under examination and imprisoned, placing him in solitary confinement.
Since then, it has been the subject of intense diplomatic negotiations. According to several media, the American authorities would also like to hear him on the interference of Russia in the American presidential campaign of 2016, which would have been committed in particular with the help of hackers.
The Express reported that the FBI boss traveled to Paris in January to get Americans “Recover Vinnik once the legal process is over for him on French soil”. For its part, Russia has repeatedly requested his extradition from the Quai d’Orsay, without success.
His defense continues to denounce a case ” Politics “. Before the investigative chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, last February, his Greek lawyer, Zoe Konstantopoulou, considered that he was “Requested by the United States to be used as a weapon against its country”, stressing that he had very advanced technological knowledge, in particular on the blockchain. Last April, his Russian lawyer, Timofeï Moussatov, died. According to Russian media, he tripped on a staircase.
