BTC-e exchange went down about a day ago and are still yet to come up, thereafter a greece man was arrested for money laundering of about 4 billion dollars .
38 year old Alexander Vinnik was arrested for money laundering and converting the funds to bitcoin.
Vinnik was in court on july 26 2017, vinnik is suspected to be the admin behind BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange website.
BTC-e has being one of the oldest most trusted exchange , despite having low volumes of transactions , there are still considered one of the oldest in the game and have also gained trust credibility.
The exchange is one of the oldest virtual currency platforms. It allows users to trade bitcoin pseudonymously against a variety of fiat and virtual currencies, and is known in crypto-currency markets as having relaxed standards for checking users’ identity, and for not collaborating with law enforcement.
BTC-e went offline immediately Vinnik was arrested and posted a tweet that they will be back in 5-10 days.
it was also reported that BTC-e was charged with $110 million fine as for violations allegedly committed by the long-running bitcoin exchange. while vinnik was fined $12 million fine and stands a risk of jailed for up to 55 years or more if convicted.
While it is not yet certain if Alexander Vinnik might be the Admin of the reputable bitcoin exchange.
Greece police also said that vinnik runs a personal deal with the exchange, so even if vinnik might not be the admin , he is also in close contacts with them or ,might be one of the key operators.
U.S. 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. And also stated that Vinnik and BTC-e was the mastermind of MT GOX hack in 2014.
Alexander Vinnik is charged of hacking of funds ,drug trafficking, identity theft and public corruption. he was tracked down by the US officials and Greek police through the help of the bitcoin public ledger known as blockchain.
