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Alexander Vinnik, a Russian who operated the BTC-E cryptocurrency platform, is to be published as part of the exchange that frees the American teacher Marc Fogel, said a US official.
Vinnik, who was arrested on vacation in Greece in 2017 and delivered to the USA, was accused of having washed Bitcoin worth billions of dollars worth billions of dollars.
He is in custody in Northern California and is waiting for the transport back Russia. He has to extend $ 100 million as a condition of his release.
“We see this as a fair exchange. This was not the dealer of death for a basketball player, ”said the official in an obvious reference to the Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, whom the USA published in return for WNBA player Brittney Griner in 2022.
The White House on Wednesday also said that an American was among three people dismissed from Belarus, of whom one of whom worked for the radio financed by the US government, although press spokesman Karoline Leavitt refused to give further details about their identity or possibly In return, it could be released from the United States.
Vinnik was accused in 2017 to wash money for criminal syndicates around the world and identity theft and to facilitate drug trafficking and earn BTC-E Bitcoin worth more than $ 4 billion. He owed the conspiracy to commit money laundering last year.
The public prosecutor also claimed that BTC-E was involved in ransomware attacks and other cyber-criminal activities.
Fogel was released on Tuesday and was received late that night in the White House of President Donald Trump, Republican Congress management and special representative Steve Witkoff.
Trump refused to comment on whether he had talked to the Russian President Vladimir Putin about Fogel.
Witkoff flew to Moscow with his private jet on Tuesday to negotiate the deal to secure Fogel’s return.
The White House described the publication of the American as a show of “faithful and faith” from Moscow, which the discussions on the end of the War in Ukraine. It is “a sign that we move in the right direction to end brutal and terrible war in Ukraine,” said Mike Waltz, National Security Adviser of US security.
Fogel was arrested in 2021 for the possession of medical marijuana and served a 14-year sentence in Russia.
When he arrived in the White House, he said he was “now in a dream world”.
