Family statements collected by RIA Novosti indicated that Alexander Vinnik was moved to the United States. He began in Boston, where he had established a home base, and was later relocated to San Francisco after a court there issued an arrest warrant for the Russian national.
Family members described the sequence as a kidnapping.
Public records show that on July 25, 2017, Vinnik was detained on the Chalkidiki peninsula in Greece at the request of the United States, where he and his family were staying. In the United States, he faced charges of money laundering and cryptocurrency fraud.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Vinnik founded the BTC-e online exchange in 2011, a platform that converted bitcoin and other digital currencies into dollars, euros, and rubles. Prosecutors allege that he supported BTC-e by purchasing another exchange, Mt. Gox, a move tied to a substantial loss of bitcoins. At that time, the value involved neared two billion dollars. The government asserts that illicit funds flowed through BTC-e.
The charges also included the alleged theft of personal data from users of online exchanges. Law enforcement officials say criminal groups, including drug-trafficking networks, used BTC-e for money laundering. Estimates place the exchange’s turnover at several billion dollars, ranging from four to nine billion, according to American authorities.
Throughout his career, Vinnik drew attention from multiple countries. In addition to the United States, requests for extradition came from Russia and France. In 2020, New Zealand authorities announced seizures totaling about 90 million dollars from WME Capital Management, a company registered to Vinnik.
Four extradition requests
The United States was the first to seek extradition, a petition accepted by the Thessaloniki Court on October 4, 2017. Vinnik’s lawyers pursued appeals, but the Greek Supreme Civil and Criminal Court ultimately upheld the extradition order.
Shortly after the American request, in September 2017, the Prosecutor General of Russia submitted a request for extradition to Greece, alleging that Vinnik had stolen more than 600,000 rubles under the pretense of anonymity in supplying equipment from a local enterprise. Greece did not reject the Russian request and approved Vinnik’s extradition to the Russian Federation one week after agreeing to the American request.
On July 30 of the same year, Thessaloniki granted a second extradition request from Russia, accusing Vinnik of another crime described as fraud involving 750 million rubles in the field of information technology.
Then, 17 days later, Greece promised to extradite Vinnik to France to undertake investigative activities under a European arrest warrant. Under the arrangements, he would be sent to Greece after interrogation. The French accused him of blackmail and money laundering as part of a criminal network during 2016–2018.
Thus, Greece fulfilled four extradition requests in quick succession. France won the case and sent him there in 2020; however, French authorities showed no haste to extradite him to Greece, instead convicting him to five years in prison.
Return to Greece
Vinnik repeatedly denied the charges against him in the United States and France, stating that repatriation to his homeland was preferable. In late November 2018, he declared himself a political prisoner and began a hunger strike. A visit by the Russian Federation Ombudsman for Human Rights, Tatyana Moskalkova, followed, and she helped end the hunger strike.
Under Greek law, a person can be detained without charge for up to 18 months. That limit for Vinnik expired on January 26, 2019, and extensions up to 30 months are possible only in exceptional cases. The Greek court, however, did not grant such an extension, prompting Vinnik’s lawyers to seek release.
On April 11, 2019, the Greek court refused to release him and he continued the hunger strike. In July, prosecutors extended detention until January 2020, and afterward he was handed over to the French authorities.
On July 2, 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that France should not extradite Vinnik to Greece, allowing transfer to the United States instead. Despite this ruling, Vinnik was sent to Greece while still in a French prison. Ahead of this, the United States withdrew one of the extradition permits linked to his case in France, leaving only those tied to Greece active. Greece subsequently submitted a fresh extradition request to France in another matter. According to Vinnik’s French attorney, this tactic helped ensure the coordination of custody and transfer across jurisdictions, moving the case along as quickly as possible. The news that a plane carrying a Russian national had departed from France to Athens drew attention to the ongoing legal maneuvering.
[citation: United States Department of Justice; Thessaloniki Court records; Russian Prosecutor General; European Court of Human Rights]