Former BTC-e Operator Alexander Vinnik Pleads Guilty to Money Laundering Conspiracy

The U.S. Department of Justice announced that Alexander Vinnik, one of the former operators behind BTC-e, pleaded guilty on Friday to charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering. The Justice Department said Vinnik was the operator of BTC-e between 2011 and 2017, and the exchange handled more than 1 million users and more than $9 billion in trading volume during that period. BTC-e was linked to the hack of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox and was involved in laundering 300,000 bitcoins. BTC-e was shut down in July 2017, at the same time as Vinnik's first arrest. The Justice Department added that BTC-e was not registered as a money services business in the United States, did not implement any KYC or anti-money laundering rules, and did not collect any customer data. In addition, Vinnik used shell companies to process fiat currency exchanges for BTC-e. The press release stated that the exchange did receive funds from criminal activities including ransomware attacks, hacks, and other schemes, and Vinnik was directly responsible for losses of approximately $121 million. (CoinDesk)