Topic: BTC-e.com down ! Police detains the owner . - page 18. (Read 21894 times)

Yeah but so what... physical currency is used by criminals too.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2017/07/26/business/26reuters-greece-russia-arrest-bitcoin.html

Thank you.

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https://twitter.com/magicaltux/status/890251940306632704

Looks like this will be talked about after all...


No association yet to BTC-e, however funds from here are ending up on Poloniex and Bittrex wallets

Interesting, but not sure if it's true/correct....   

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6pkjny/and_while_btce_is_down_some_169m_bitcoin_fortune/

By getting a license, like many exchanges have done. KYC/AML may suck, but it protects you from cases like this.

It's considered "money laundering" because they were running an unlicensed exchange service.

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The connection to Mt. Gox funds seems interesting.
The article also mentions another exchange based in San Francisco (Coinbase? Kraken?).

Infact: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/btc-e-down-information-tracking-thread-2047600

Damn. How can other exchanges be safe from this? I don't think any one of them tries to verify where the money is coming from, that's the whole point of bitcoin. anonymity.

Well it is laundering. It is belong to money laundering also and bitcoin is a type of money that is a cryptocurrency. Well if people exist in this world to launder then what's left for us? Right? So I think that it is better to put it this way. Good job policemen.

So it may be the reason for the drop yesterday. I am so glad I didn't deposit something. Since Sunday I was telling to myself "Don't forget to make a deposit in BTC-e" I didn't and now I see this topic I am so happy that I was lazy this past day. Sad for people who were storing some coins there.
I didn't know that BTC-e was "one of the largest cybercrime websites in the world" Bad news for Bitcoin

BTC-e is no Mount Gox. Bitcoin is beyond the point where a single failed organization can be catastrophic. We will shrug this off and move along, business as usual in a week's time.

Those that learned nothing from Gox, right?

That's the first source connecting both, more to follow soon, I'm sure.

Essentially, if this does indeed turn out to be related to BTC-E, he can deny all he wants, from where this exchange can continue to operate under the guidance of the other operator/founder.

If you look at the latest articles, and look at the bust down of various deep web markets, it does make sense that they are striking in a very hard and efficient manner.

I had like $300 in fiat sitting there, which I can forget about without any problems, but imagine how people must feel with huge loads of funds sitting there, with basically no way out.

Is this the btc-e founder? this will not be too good for bitcoin. bitcoin has been used by the criminals, but that's not the fault of bitcoin.

Just saw this on another thread. no link to where he got it though.  update on the source - http://www.dailythess.gr/h-megali-klopi-bitcoins-dark-web-ke-chlidati-zoi-tou-rosou-pou-entopise-fbi-sti-chalkidiki/

The Big Bit Theft, the Dark Web and the Sleazy Life of the Russian Who Detected the FBI in Halkidiki
Vassilis Kyriacoulis

38-year-old Russian Alexander Vinnik enjoyed his vacation with his partner in one of the most expensive hotels in Ouranoupoli in Halkidiki. He had not realized the slightest of the FBI steps he had been watching for months, informing the Greek prosecution authorities of his action. Yesterday after a surprise operation he was arrested and today he was handcuffed to the prosecutor of the Thessaloniki Court of Appeals in order to start the proceedings for his extradition to the United States.

The 38-year-old is characterized by the US authorities as one of the leading members of an organization that was running large amounts of money through an online Bitcoin digital exchange platform that helped to "launder" more than $ 4 billion from 2011 to date! This is the BTC-e platform, which after the 38-year-old is arrested as the US prosecution investigation is in full swing.

In the traces of the massive attack on Mt. Gox

Characteristically, according to the documents sent to the Greek authorities on the bitcoins exchange platform behind which the 38-year-old Russian is hiding, a large part of the "stolen" removed from Mt. Gox , which by the end of 2014 managed 70% of the volume of bitocoin trades worldwide, but after the attack it received declared bankrupt.

The trial of MT's CEO recently kicked off in Tokyo. Gox Mark Karpelès , who accused the hackers of the 850,000 bitcoin, worth about $ 500 million, lost in 2014. According to documents that reached 306,853 bitcoins stolen after the attack on Mt. Gox entered the BTC-e purses. According to the same documents another part of the stolen from the attack on Mt. Gox arrived at a San Francisco exchange office.

Alexander Vinnik on his admission to the courts of Thessaloniki
"One of the biggest" money laundering "on the Internet

As stated in the documents sent by the US Department of Justice, BTC-e is "one of the largest entities in the field of electronic money laundering and money laundering in the world". According to the US authorities, "illegal proceeds come from a number of high-level piracy, ransom repayment systems, drug trafficking and tax systems." As the US authorities have estimated on this platform since 2011, 12.5 million bitcoins have been filed and blamed, and blame the 38-year-old Russian and his colleagues for spilling at least $ 4 billion!
Corrupt agents

Through the platform behind which the Russians are accused of allegedly scamming money, two corrupt US federal agents Carl Force and Shaun Bridges , who were accused of robbing millions of dollars worth of Silk Road , This site was one of the largest black drug markets in the so-called "dark internet".
The trails at Abu Dhabi's luxury hotel

The FBI had closely watched 38-year-old Russian at least over a year ago, as its papers refer to May 2016 as a luxury hotel in Abu Dhabi, as it traced its digital footprints through a WebMoney account.
He denies the accusations

Today, in front of the prosecutor in Thessaloniki, 38-year-old Russian denies any interference with the accusations attributed to him by the US authorities, and he said he was amazed at his arrest. The Appeals Council is expected to meet in the coming time, which is required to give its opinion on the request for extradition to the United States, and then the final decision will be taken by the Minister for Justice. The maximum period of detention by the Greek authorities may not exceed two months.

As of the time I'm writing this post, BTC-e is not down, neither have I found sources connecting this arrest or the person arrested to BTC-e. That being said, if all this is true, too bad: we've seen similar in the community and we all know what happened.

i said for SO many times(you can check my posts) : "by using an unlicensed exchanger, you are exposed to frauds and scams."  

do you think that Coinbase and similar others 5-6 exchangers which have a financial license,  were stupids to spend millions for their licenses? they want to play for a long time without looking behind and having the peace of the mind.
also, they can offer you the peace of the mind because they are insured. why would you use a shit/anonymous exchanger instead? for what?

I always target exchangers like BTC-e, KRaken, Poloniex and others without any license. Mark my words, they will come next.

100% they got BTC-e no question about it.  The site is down because all the coins are gone.  Sorry I know it hurts but too many coincidences for it not to be true.  They took 5K from me but I will survive.  Others with more will surely be hurting.

Nobody really is. Running an unlicensed exchange, it's understandable they prefer to remain anonymous.
The name Alexander pops up a few times when searching for information about the people behind btc-e,
for example in this article on coindesk from 2013: https://www.coindesk.com/btc-e-recent-issues-caused-surge-users/

Digiconomist also names "Alexander and Alekey" in their Fraud Risk Assessment - http://digiconomist.net/fraud-risk-assessment-btce

I can't find anything about the owner of BTC-E (a picture or name) so It could be hard to relate. BTC-E did start on 2011 indeed I believe and Its running by Russians but since the team of BTC-E already announced on Twitter that It's a simple maintenance, It's better to not spread false information's and see how things goes, the tweet was yesterday while this guy got arrested today so It wouldn't make sense to say that they are going to run.

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EDIT

You sure about the names? because 'Alexander Vinnik' is the name of the guy who got arrested and you can see it on BBC news or NY times.

IIRC the owners of BTC-e went to great length to keep their identities hidden as well as possible.
All there was known about the co-founders is their first names, Aleksey and Alexander.
With BTC-e being down right now, the timing certainly matches.