U.S. wants to take control over BTC-e’s crypto assets

US authorities have filed a movement aiming to grab the cash within the pockets of the as soon as largest Russian cryptocurrency change, BTC-e.

The US Division of Justice hopes to forfeit the digital forex from the buying and selling platform, which processed funds derived from a wide range of felony actions.

DOJ desires BTC-e cryptocurrency

The US Division of Justice has been attempting to achieve management of BTC-e’s crypto holdings because the inventory market collapsed in July 2017, Russian crypto media has realized.

The DOJ has filed a lawsuit within the U.S. District Court docket for the District of Columbia, in search of the forfeiture of the cryptocurrency held within the now-defunct change’s wallets.

It calls for that digital and different property allegedly utilized in unlawful actions be turned over to the US authorities, main Russian crypto information outlet Bits.media reported on Friday.

The lawsuit, filed in late June, cites a number of provisions of the U.S. Civil Asset Forfeiture Act.

It additionally highlights that BTC-e facilitated operations associated to cash laundering, cyber fraud and ransomware assaults, in addition to transactions associated to darknet markets.

The DOJ is concentrating on crypto property held within the platform’s wallets, together with Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and different digital currencies.

As a result of this can be a civil lawsuit, the federal government will have the ability to declare property associated to unlawful actions, no matter whether or not felony costs have been introduced towards particular people.

Every other individuals, people or authorized entities who believed they had been able to assert their share of BTC-e’s property would have the ability to take action by September 2.

On that date, a sixty-day interval for submitting such claims expired, starting with the official discover asserting the graduation of the case.

The lengthy story of BTC-e continues to unfold

At its peak, BTC-e was the biggest cryptocurrency change within the Russian market section, which US authorities suspected of laundering as much as $9 billion in unlawful funds.

It ceased operations in the summertime of 2017, when one in every of its co-founders and alleged operators, Russian entrepreneur Alexander Vinnik, was arrested. He was initially detained within the Greek metropolis of Thessaloniki whereas on vacation along with his household.

Vinnik was later extradited to France, the place he was sentenced to 5 years in jail in December 2020, and finally transferred to the US in 2022, the place he pleaded responsible to cash laundering costs in 2024.

The present administration of President Donald Trump exchanged the Russian in an organized prisoner swap with Moscow for American instructor Marc Fogel, who has been held in a Russian jail since 2021 beneath a 14-year sentence for having hashish in his baggage.

Nonetheless, the US authorities have by no means misplaced curiosity in BTC-e’s actions. It had servers in the US, which allowed them to grab its web site, and suspected ties to Russian safety companies.

Earlier in October, the Telegram channel VChK-OGPU, which is near the Russian safety forces, revealed, quoted by Bits.media, that 6,500 BTC, value about $694 million on the time, had been withdrawn from a pockets linked to Alexey Bilyuchenko, one other co-founder and supervisor of BTC-e.

Bilyuchenko was additionally concerned within the operation of Wex, the successor to BTC-e, which was based after Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev took over the change. He’s stated to have used BTC-e funds to finance the pro-Russian facet within the battle in japanese Ukraine.

Wex is now additionally bankrupt, however the hunt for its executives continues. On the finish of 2024, the previous head, Dmitry Vasiliev, was arrested in Warsaw. In June, information emerged that Polish authorities had agreed to extradite him to the US, as reported by Cryptopolitan.