Topic: [2017-07-31] BTC-E Claims Alexander Vinnik Was Never Their Admin Employee (Read 7248 times)

Unfortunately, asset forfeiture law/regulations in the US were written precisely so that US law enforcement agencies could seize money without proving guilt. It's a shakedown racquet. Even if you are innocent, the costs of mounting a legal defense against asset forfeiture are often not worth it. That's why the practice has become so rampant.

Sadly, the US government can take billions of dollars from people because of one guy. Nobody can stop them.

This case is still up in the air, though. BTC-e made an announcement yesterday that they were able to access their wallets and are evaluating the damage. They also said that fiat money held by Mayzus has been frozen. In both cases, it is not clear what amounts have been lost, and whether the exchange is technically solvent:

This whole thing is one big joke. Steal everyone's money because one person tried to run a big scam. Why not give everyone a chance to withdraw and THEN proceed with legal stuff? You can't just take billions of dollars from people because of one guy.

It was run on a .ru domain years ago, and I believe the exchange was based in Russia at that time. It was banned by the Russian government, and supposedly the exchange moved operations to Bulgaria and/or Cyprus. The .com domain was eventually also banned by Russia, so they mostly use the .nz domain. That domain has yet to be seized.

I didn't verify for myself, but I saw someone post earlier that btc-e.top was showing a mirror of the old site. They said the domain was registered to the same company as btc-e.nz .... VERY interesting if so. Apparently btc-e.top was also redirecting to Exmo (a Russian exchange with alleged ties to BTC-e). I wish I could find that thread now....

Obviously, to gain international attention. If they stick to purely a russian domain, it would severely limit their reach as many people (non Russians) would likely avoid this exchange. On the other hand, while a lot of their customers aren't Russian, I do find it frustrating and weird that they mostly release important statements purely in Russian, and not in English. I know that English isn't their main language, but it's extremely amateurish if you haven't even hired people with the ability to communicate in fluent English.

Didn't you know? US of A is the ruler of the world, where their law applies to all countries in the world. If you fart in Uganda, they will have you arrested within 24 hours (if not sooner). It's beyond insane, I know, but that's how they operate. That being said, it's not that BTC-E is completely free here. If BTC-E was indeed used to store and launder the MtGox coins, there is not much that you can blame the authorities for. It's just a rubbish situation that the fair and square traders are the real losers here.

i dont understand why btc-e was running on a .com domain and not .ru , and on a second note, how the heck they made arrests in other country ?

I am foreseeing that this will be a long-drawn case against BTC-e and the US government lead by the Department of Justice (based on their domain seizure post). BTC-e should hire a very good lawyer so that they can establish that they have nothing to do with Alexander Vinnik otherwise they would not any business to return to and their customers would suffered the most if they can not be able to refund the money. I am hoping that the money seized by the operatives would consider on how the innocent customers can be refunded as they can be powerless on this incident.

BTC-E Claims Alexander Vinnik Was Never Their Admin Employee, Promises to Return Customer Funds

Recently, BTC-e’s domain went down and, shortly before, news of 38-year-old Alexander Vinnik’s arrest in Greece for laundering $4 billion of ill-gotten bitcoins broke. After putting the pieces together, and having suspicions confirmed by news outlets, the cryptocurrency community started to believe that Vinnik was BTC-e’s admin. A new forum post published by BTC-e rebuts Vinnik’s role in the exchange, and promises users their funds back.

Vinnik was often seen as a “BTC-e operator”, and was even described as such in the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) charges against him. The Russian national is accused of laundering the funds through BTC-e, which according to reports included over 300,000 bitcoins stolen from Mt Gox.

Backing up the theory was the fact that BTC-e’s domain has been seized by authorities, as accessing its website shows us the image below. Moreover, Vinnik was charged by a U.S. grand jury, and BTC-e was given a $110 million fine from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).


Things added up: BTC-e’s domain went down, its domain was seized, and its supposed admin was arrested. As such, users started to believe their funds had also been seized by authorities and, as a response, a petition on change.org was created, so innocent BTC-e users could have their money back.

So far, BTC-e’s response to the whole situation were tweets about the current status of their website, before it was seized. Now, the exchange has published an update in Russian on the Bitcointalk forum, that was also tweeted out on its official account, giving users a few insights on what happened so far.

According to BTC-e, the exchange’s data center was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on July 25. At the time, the FBI “seized all equipment, the servers contained databases and purses of our service.”

The exchange claims it didn’t update users until now because it was waiting for a response from its hosting provider, and according to its post part of its service is now under the FBI’s hands. The post adds that in the next two weeks updates on the exchange’s options to come back to life, and on how to restore customer funds if it is unable to do so, will come. It reads:

   
The post ends by stating that BTC-e always functioned on trust, and that “funds will be returned to everyone.” Near the end, it adds a note on Alexander Vinnik’s arrest, stating that the Russian “was never the head” of BTC-e, nor was it even employed at the exchange.

Various users started asking the exchange questions, hoping the admin behind the account will be able to answer them and give them as much information as possible. Various users noted that millions of dollars worth of bitcoin and ethereum have been moved from addresses believed to belong to BTC-e, possibly meaning that the exchange safeguarded funds, or that they were seized by authorities. Nonetheless, the exchange’s words were clear:

   
Source:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/btc-e-claims-alexander-vinnik-never-admin-employee-promises-return-customer-funds/