BTC-e co-owner Arrested and Official Website Seized by U.S Law Enforcement Authorities

Last week, Alexander Vinnik the co-owner of BTC-e, which is one of the largest digital currency exchange, was arrested by US law enforcement authorities

In capsule:

• The official website was brought down by US law enforcement authorities
• He was arrested for using his platform for money laundering and other financial crimes
• He is also a prime suspect for laundering $4 billion money from Mt Gox exchange
• In a statement posted in Bitcoin forum talk, they assured that funds would be returned to everyone

Last week, Alexander Vinnik the co-owner of BTC-e, which is one of the largest digital currency exchange, was arrested by US law enforcement authorities, and now they have seized their official website also. He was charged with 21 counts of money laundering and financial crimes which include charges associated with helping cyber criminals for ransomware payouts. He is also the prime suspect for the $4 billion theft from Mt Gox exchange. The official website of BTC-e was brought down by the feds and now shows a message as below given : “This domain for BTC-e has been seized. Pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by the United States District Court for District of New Jersey under the authority of 18 U.S.C., § 981,1956 (a) (1) (A), and 1960 – as part of the joint law enforcement operation and action by U.S Department of Justice, Northen District of California and Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, Homeland security Investigations, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S Secret Service and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation – Office of Inspector General.” On July 26th, a forum associated with the operators of the BTC-e has posted a statement that website would be back in working order in next 5 or 10 days.

Below given is the full statement:

  Today through a statement posted in Bitcoin talk forum they described what was happened on July 25th and they assured that fund would be returned to everyone.

The full preview of the post is given below :

After the authorities had arrested Alexander Vinnik from Greece,  WizSec published a blog post reporting the details $4 billion theft from Mt Gox exchange According to the blog post, the private wallet keys of Mt. Got was stolen in 2011, and they regularly stole whatever they could be using the compromised keys till 2013. The coins which were stolen were transferred to three accounts BTC-e which can be only accessed by BTC-e operator or admins. One of the accounts was controlled by Alexander Vinnik, and others are unknown.

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