BTC-e’s Former Operator Faces 5 Years in Prison – Appeal Denied
Although BTC-e former operator Alexander Vinnik had multiple charges against him dropped, the five years sentence remains unchanged.
According to Bitcoin.com, the Paris Court of Appeal upholds its verdict to sentence BTC-e operator for five years in French jail on funds laundering charges. Keep in mind that Vannik’s supporters tried to appeal the previous decision by the Court in May.
Alexander Vinnik is a Russian who had operated BTC-e, a crypto trading site detained by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2017.
Although the sentence remains unchanged, the regulators diminished multiple charges against the investor, including money extortion using malware. Also, the court dropped the $100,000 fine from Vinnik.
Alexander’s team is already planning to appeal the latest decision by the court. Vannik’s lawyer, Frederic Belot, declared to Kommersant, a Russian news source, that he believes the prosecution lacked enough evidence showing that the operator received the funds from the laundering deal.
He further stated that summarizing the case concluded that the regulator came to a ‘lazy decision.’ The lawyer assumes that the court failed to further their investigations despite the uncertainties with the prosecution’s evidence.
Vinnik’s Defense Team Fights against US Extradition
Firstly, the lawmakers arrested Vinnik while on vacation in Thessaloniki, a Greek city, in 2017. The investor faced detention in front of his family upon his arrival based on the US arrest warrant. The US government accused the crypto investor of laundering about $9 billion via BTC-e.
Meanwhile, as the defense work on alleviating the 5-years charges, the team said that its main focus is to ensure that there is no such thing as deporting the investor to Greece after spending his jail term in France. According to reports by Bitcoin.com, the defense team trusts that Greece might allow the US to deport Vinnik, resulting in more jail terms.
At the moment, no one knows whether the French will send the former BTC-e operator to Greece. Frederic Belot declared that the Judge taking Vinnik’s case said that Greece would not violate the victim’s rights.
Frederic believes that the deportation to the United Stated would translate to a new trial, which might be extreme since it will not be in European conditions.
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