Alexander Vinnik was arrested in cooperation with U.S. authorities through “one of the most important websites of electronic crime in the world.”
Alexander Vinnik was a “BTC-e operator”, and that the exchange’s website went down before news of his arrest surfaced. On Twitter, it stated there was “unplanned maintenance”, and the latest update, on July 26, declared it would be “5-10 days” before it got back up, although at press time the domain has been seized by authorities.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in California’s northern district, the indictment alleges that Vinnik received funds from the Mt Gox hack. Given the motive of his arrest, he then presumably laundered these funds, either for himself or for someone else.
