Aleksandr Winnik, a Russian citizen convicted in the USA and released as a replacement of prisoners, reached Moscow on Thursday. Independent Radio freedom reported that his defender confirmed information about the arrival. He was charged in money laundering, at least four billion dollars. The court called him “a digital pirate on an international scale”.
Russian Aleksandr Winnik, who was released from an American prison and devoted to Russia in exchange for a former US Embassy employee in Moscow, Marc Fogel, returned to Moscow – the independent Radio Swoboda said, citing the defender of Winnik.
Winnik was one of the bosses of BTC-E, the Bitcoin cryptocurrency exchange, closed by the FBI. In the USA, he was accused of washing in money laundering – at least four billion dollars – via BTC -E, whose turnover reached $ 66 million per day.
He was also accused of participating in extortion, theft of personal data and drug trafficking. In May 2024, Winnik pleaded guilty about the collusion regarding money laundering.
Aleksandr Winnik was released from an American prisonReuters
The verdict in this case was not passed. Winnik first was punishable by 50 years in prison, and after a settlement with the prosecutor's office – up to ten years.
Extradition to the USA
Winnik came to the USA after detention in Greece in 2017, at the request of the American side. However, first in 2020 he was spent France, where the court sentenced him to five years in prison for laundering money stolen as part of cyber attacks with the help of harmful software.
The court called him “a digital pirate on an international scale”. In August 2022, France gave it to the United States, which demanded its extradition.
Fogel, released by Moscow on Tuesday, is a former employee of the US embassy and a teacher at the English -language school in Moscow. In 2021 he was detained, and a year later sentenced to 14 years in prison for having 17 grams of medical marijuana. It wasn't until 2024 that he was officially recognized by the US authorities as wrongly detained in Russia.
Source of the main photo: Reuters