The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has indicted two Russians in connection with the 2014 digital robbery of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox.
According to an unsealed indictment released last week, Alexei Bilyuchenko, 43, and Alexander Werner, 29, were arrested in 2011 as a result of unauthorized access to servers holding cryptocurrency wallets. He has been charged with conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins stolen from September through at least May 2014. Used by Mt Gox customers.
“Since 2011, Mr. Bilyuchenko and Mr. Varner have stolen large amounts of cryptocurrency from Mt. Gox, leading to the exchange’s eventual bankruptcy,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said in a statement. .
“Armed with illicit profits from Mt Gox, Bilyuchenko allegedly helped found the infamous cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e, which laundered money for cybercriminals around the world.”
Bilyuchenko and Varner also made large wire transfers to various offshore bank accounts around March 2012 and April 2013 and used an anonymous New York-based Bitcoin intermediary service to ensure that the stolen coins were stolen. It is also suspected of laundering more than 300,000 digital assets.
The BTC-e exchange was opened in 2011 using cryptocurrencies looted from Mt. Before that, it was one of the main routes taken by cybercriminals. I cashed in the proceeds of my illegal activities.
After Vinnik was extradited from Greece to the United States in August last year, the Wall Street Journal reported late last month that he was being urged to participate in a possible prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia. rice field.
“BTC-e has served more than one million users worldwide, moved millions of bitcoin worth of deposits and withdrawals, and processed billions of dollars worth of transactions,” the Justice Department said.
“BTC-e received criminal proceeds from numerous computer intrusion and hacking incidents, ransomware incidents, identity theft schemes, corrupt government officials, drug trafficking syndicates, and more.”
Both men were charged with money laundering and, if convicted, could each face up to 20 years in prison. Bilyuchenko could also face an additional 25 years in prison for running an unlicensed financial services business.
Mt Gox, the largest cryptocurrency exchange at the time, officially filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 shortly after the theft. The exchange’s CEO, Mark Karperez, was identified as the prime suspect and was arrested and indicted in Japan in August 2015. with fraud and embezzlement.
Karpeles was then convicted in Japan in 2019, convicted of data manipulation in Tokyo District Court, and given a suspended two-and-a-half-year prison sentence. However, he was acquitted of the embezzlement charge.
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The development was “a 39-year-old Romanian man named Mihaly Ionut Paunescu for running a bulletproof hosting service that allowed cybercriminals to distribute malware strains such as Gozi, Zeus, SpyEye Trojan, and BlackEnergy. It was done after being sentenced to three years in prison.”
Pawnescu was arrested in Colombia in July 2021 before being extradited to the United States a year later, and was also ordered to forfeit $3.51 million and pay $18,945 in reparations.
This law enforcement action is allowing the U.S. State Department to take up to five million dollars for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Sweden-based Serb criminal and identified “manager and influencer” Maximilian Rybkin. It was done at the same time as the announcement that they would give a dollar reward. Over the encrypted messaging app AN0M (aka ANoM).
AN0M was a Trojan horse founded by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in 2018 to covertly monitor criminal activity on their platforms. About 12,000 of his AN0M-equipped devices were sold to 300 criminal organizations operating in 100 countries.
The three-year sting operation, dubbed “Trojan Shield,” analyzed more than 27 million messages containing discussions of drug concealment methods, drug trafficking, money laundering, and even violent threats, resulting in 18 It has led to more than 800 arrests in several countries.
