US ARRESTS RUSSIAN BITCOIN MASTERMIND

Russian Alexander Vinnik (C) is escorted by police officers as he arrives at a courthouse in Thessaloniki on July 26, 2017. Greek police said that they had arrested a 38-year-old Russian sought by US authorities for allegedly helping criminals launder billions of dollars using Bitcoin. Picture: AFP

A US jury has indicted a Russian man as the operator of a digital currency exchange he allegedly used to launder more than $US4 billion ($AU5 billion) for people involved in crimes ranging from computer hacking to drug trafficking. 
Alexander Vinnik was arrested in a small beachside village in northern Greece on Tuesday, according to local authorities, following an investigation led by the US Justice Department along with several other federal agencies and task forces.
US officials described Vinnik in a Justice Department statement as the operator of BTC-e, an exchange used to trade the digital currency bitcoin since 2011.
They alleged Vinnik and his firm “received” more than $US4 billion in bitcoin and did substantial business in the United States without following appropriate protocols to protect against money laundering and other crimes.

US authorities also linked him to the failure of Mt. Gox, a Japan-based bitcoin exchange that collapsed in 2014 after being hacked.

His arrest is the latest in a series of US operations against Russian cyber criminals in Europe. Last week, the US Justice Department moved to shut down the dark web marketplace AlphaBay.
The prosecutions also coincide with intensified scrutiny of Russian hackers after US intelligence officials determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election using cyber warfare methods to help Donald Trump, something Moscow denies.
Bitcoin was the first digital currency to successfully use cryptography to keep transactions secure and pseudonymous, making conventional financial regulation difficult.

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