Russia Loses Bid to Keep Cyber Suspect Out of French, U.S. Hands
Russia Loses Bid to Keep Cyber Suspect Out of French, U.S. Hands
(Bloomberg) -- Greece agreed to hand over a Russian citizen accused of cryptocurrency-related charges in several countries, a move that could bring him closer to facing trial in France or the U.S.
The Russian, Alexander Vinnik, will be extradited to France, the Russian embassy in Athens said in social media postings on Friday that sharply accused Athens of ignoring Moscow’s request for Vinnik’s return home.
Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 and has since been held by authorities there, prompting an extradition battle among France, Russia and the U.S., each of which has brought charges against him. Vinnik and his legal team in Greece have said they feared that France would hand him over to the U.S., where he’s accused of supervising a digital-currency exchange that helped criminals launder billions of dollars.
A person familiar with his case said Vinnik would be extradited for trials in France and then the U.S. The timing wasn’t clear.
In a 2017 indictment, U.S. prosecutors in San Francisco accused Vinnik of supervising an exchange, BTC-e, that allowed cybercriminals to move illicit proceeds between cash and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin anonymously and without vetting. France also accuses him of cybercrimes against its citizens.
Vinnik was among a group of Russians arrested in Europe in recent years and sought by the U.S. Several of them now face hacking and cyberfraud charges in San Francisco, Connecticut and New York. Vinnik’s case was notable because BTC-e handled Bitcoin traced to the same Russian military intelligence hacking unit that Special Counsel Robert Mueller separately implicated in the release of Democrats’ emails to sway votes in the 2016 U.S. elections.
The U.S. has been trying to get its hands on Vinnik for more than two years. Greece’s Supreme Court ruled in December 2017 that he could be extradited to the U.S. to face the charges in San Francisco. Russia battled the U.S. request for his extradition, demanding that Greece return him to Russia to face cybercrime charges against him there. Amid delays and appeals, Vinnik waged a three-month hunger strike that ended earlier this year.
In Facebook and Twitter postings, the Russian embassy said it had been informed of the Greek Justice Minister’s decision to prioritize Vinnik’s extradition to France. It said it was “very sorry“ that Russia’s request for him to face trial in his home country was ignored.
A representative at the Paris prosecutor’s office declined to comment, citing the ongoing French investigation.
Vinnik has denied the U.S. money-laundering accusations as well as the French charges, saying through a lawyer that he had no control over the $9 billion in Bitcoin that U.S. prosecutors in San Francisco say ran through BTC-e. In a courtroom interview earlier this year, Vinnik said he feared that extradition to France would lead to his being sent to the U.S.
“The U.S. is kidnapping Russian citizens through third countries,” he said at the time. “France is just another way, another link for my extradition to the U.S.”
--With assistance from Gaspard Sebag and Paul Tugwell.
To contact the reporter on this story: Eleni Chrepa in Athens at echrepa@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey D Grocott at jgrocott2@bloomberg.net, David S. Joachim
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