Almost a year has passed since former DPR militiaman Dmitry Khavchenko, known in his military past by the call sign Sailor, acquired through his daughter Daria Khavchenko, as Lenta.ru wrote about, the WEX cryptocurrency exchange, the successor to the scandalous BTC-e platform . All this time, the search has not stopped for the people who caused the exchange's investors to lose their funds, and, in fact, their funds - and we are talking about billions of dollars. Perhaps the end of this true detective story is near.
It must be said that the new owners a year ago assumed all the obligations of the collapsed exchange, and at the time of purchase it was the largest Russian-language resource of its type with an average daily turnover of $20 million. Previously, there was more - for example, in 2017, BTC-e was one of the most powerful crypto exchanges in the world with a turnover, according to various estimates, of about 70-80 million dollars. In 2022, the FBI seized the exchange servers and work stopped. It was at that moment that, apparently, huge funds were withdrawn from the accounts - several billion dollars. Then a real hunt was opened for them.
What is the WEX exchange
The first official announcement about the WEX exchange was dated September 15, 2022. The developers thanked the former participants of the BTC-E exchange for their patience and assured that the exchange would now work in a new way. In total, five news items were published on the resource, and the last one dates back to March 7th of this year. The WEX exchange has long been among the top 20 largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
The developers reported the restoration of payment balances in real assets (61.79% of the previous balance in fiat and crypto and 38.21% in the form of bonus network tokens) and offered to actively participate in trading again. We will talk about why this was needed below.
The user agreement contains the information: “World exchange services PTE. Ltd is a payment service considered to be a store of value under Singapore law." It goes on to say that “WEX acts as an intermediary to help customers accept payments and help customers make payments. WEX has an independent relationship with the sender and recipient of payments. We act based on your intentions and your requests to use our services, which require us to perform tasks on your behalf.”
Outwardly everything looked decent. The main feature of the exchange was certain WEX codes, which made it possible to make transactions instantly and anonymously. The latest news about the company was added to the forum on September 10, 2022, and the rate in the exchanger was stuck at 8212 USD/BTC. What happened? To do this, let's go back a few years.
The administrator of the WEX exchange (BTC-e) told how the FSB took $450 million and the data of all users from him
How the admin was transported around Moscow on April 25-27, 2022. After a series of moves and conversations, he gave the exchange assets to those accompanying him. Source: from Bilyuchenko’s testimony in the criminal case of fraud with Wex assets. Infographic: BBC
The Russian service BBC News published the results of the investigation, testimony of witnesses and transcripts of negotiations, which help to understand where the money went from the largest Russian-language crypto exchange WEX (formerly BTC-e), which ceased operations last year. All keys were kept by Alexey Bilyuchenko (nickname admin) on a flash drive, which he always carried with him.
The man was detained and gave evidence. In July 2022, due to “technical work,” the WEX exchange (formerly BTC-e) stopped withdrawing funds. In August it became known about the bankruptcy of the exchange. Thousands of clients have not had their funds returned from their accounts. According to the calculations of the initiative group, the volume of losses exceeded $400 million. The initiative group set the task of finding the lost funds and those responsible.
A criminal case was opened in Kazakhstan against the owner of the exchange, a native of Minsk with Russian citizenship, Dmitry Vasilyev. In July 2022, he was detained, but no money was found, just like Alexander Vinnik, who is considered the owner of BTC-e.
Vinnik himself has been held in prison in Thessaloniki for two and a half years, where he was arrested at the request of the FBI. American authorities call him one of the leaders of BTC-e and accuse him of money laundering. The United States, Russia and France are currently fighting for Vinnik’s extradition.
Alexander Vinnik after a long hunger strike in Thessaloniki. Photo: Yuri Malinov/TASS
Meanwhile, the bankrupt WEX exchange formally became the property of former DPR militiaman Dmitry Khavchenko with the call sign “Sailor”.
Dmitry Khavchenko (pictured left) participates in the ceremony of handing over the “black boxes” of flight MH-17. Photo: TASS
Since the employees of the Singapore business registry, where it was registered, refused to re-register it in his name personally, his daughter Daria Khavchenko, who lives in Moscow, became the official owner.
Khavchenko set the task of finding “Vinnik’s treasures” and returning at least part of the money to investors.
The key to this investigation was the detention and interrogation of the admin. Alexey Bilyuchenko, co-founder of BTC-e and Vinnik’s partner on the WEX exchange, worked under this nickname. The guys met in 2010 at one of the forums, where Vinnik was hiding under the nickname WME.
In 2011, WME and admin launched an exchange for selling cryptocurrency, giving it the name BTC-e. For a long time, Bilyuchenko and Vinnik avoided personal meetings and communicated only in instant messengers, and met for the first time only in 2014 in Moscow. In 2016, admin and his family came to visit the WME family.
In 2022, admin and WME and their wives went on vacation to Greece, but for the sake of secrecy they lived separately. Vinnik was arrested in Northern Greece while Bilyuchenko was in Crete.
Having learned about the arrest of his partner, Bilyuchenko destroyed the computer and disks with information about the operation of the exchange and immediately left for the airport in Heraklion, where he bought a ticket to Novosibirsk via Moscow.
At this point, the BTC-e exchange ceased operation. In his testimony, Bilyuchenko claims that at the time of the collapse, 65 thousand bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies were stored on it, totaling more than $1 billion at the exchange rate of that time.
At the end of 2022, the investigative department of the Novocheboksarsk police opened a case against Bilyuchenko at the request of one of the clients of the WEX exchange. Employees of the “K” department of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs subsequently joined the operational work. In the end, Bilyuchenko was detained and began to cooperate with the investigation.
The facts listed in the article are confirmed by the testimony of witnesses, Bilyuchenko himself, data from the Search-Magistral system and other sources.
Bilyuchenko said that when the FBI arrested the BTC-e servers and secured Vinnik’s arrest, the exchange stopped working. Then Dmitry Vasiliev, a major client of BTC-e, who traded in the interests of Chinese investors, contacted him via messenger. He proposed to revive BTC-e under the name WEX - and became the owner of the official legal entity of the new exchange, the Singaporean company World Exchange Services.
Dmitry Vasiliev
Almost immediately after its launch, by the end of 2022, Wex entered the top 20 largest crypto exchanges in the world, its daily turnover was $80 million.
As noted above, in the summer of 2022, Vasiliev sold the legal entity to the militia Khavchenko. A BBC News investigation concludes that Khavchenko was only a nominal owner. In fact, admin worked closely with the famous Russian entrepreneur Konstantin Malofeev, whom Vasiliev had previously contacted in search of an “administrative resource.”
Konstantin Malofeev is a Russian manager and entrepreneur, chairman of the board of directors of the group, deputy head of the World Russian People's Council, founder of the Tsargrad TV channel, chairman of the Society for the Development of Russian Historical Education "Double-Headed Eagle", chairman of the supervisory board of the International Agency for Sovereign Development, member of the Patriarchal Commission on Family Issues and protection of motherhood, member of the board of trustees of the non-profit partnership “Safe Internet League”.
The publication obtained an audio recording of a conversation between two men about the fate of the WEX exchange. An examination of the St. Petersburg ANO “Forensic Laboratory of Audiovisual Documents” showed that one of them was Konstantin Malofeev (voice samples were sent for examination without naming the person). According to the laboratory, the quality of the main recording is generally satisfactory, with speech intelligibility “almost complete.” The main conclusion: the speech on the compared recordings belongs to the same person. So, for example, speakers have the same pitch and strength of voice, style and height of articulation, and the same specificity of pronouncing individual groups of vowels and consonants.
In a recording of a conversation about the WEX exchange, a person with Malofeev’s voice calls his interlocutor “Lesha.” An acquaintance of the administrator, who listened to a fragment of the recording at the request of the BBC, said that he was “80% sure” that it was Bilyuchenko.
The conversation was allegedly made in July 2022 and lasted two hours: “There is a strong suspicion among all participants in the process that you have more than you put on the exchange. The fact that you had something to do with BTC-e is obvious, and there was much more on BTC-e than there was on Wex […] You are kept afloat because I say that you are mine, and I am responsible for you, - says a man with Malofeev’s voice. — In May, I […] told you that we should work, that all decisions should be made by me. I told you? Said. And you went somewhere. I haven't come for a long time. At this time, various events occur. The world does not stand still. […] I say: I don’t need the Vex, we are closing it. It will collapse on its own, not on its own, that doesn’t concern me.”
The man with Malofeev’s voice several times mentions the legal cryptocurrency platform Vladex (registered in 2022 under Malofeev’s 25-year-old son) and says that a paper on the creation of a “white and fluffy service” has already been signed at a high government level.
was presented at the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF), and the partners signed a paper stating that “on the basis of the existing exchange (Wex - BBC note) a new exchange will be created as a special settlement infrastructure to preserve the financial and economic sovereignty of the Russian Federation” (a copy of the document is available in the editorial office).
The company had a stand at the EEF forum, and at a session on the digitalization of the economy, then-presidential adviser Sergei Glazyev spoke about the project. He stated that Vladex was being created “in accordance with the instructions of our head of state,” personally distributed chocolates in the form of tokens to the participants and invited everyone to the Vladex stand to talk with the platform developers, Anton and Evgeniy.
Vladex stand at the Eastern Economic Forum - 2022 in Vladivostok (September 2018)
On the website of the Association of Russian Managers, the “author of the Vladex investment system project” is 35-year-old Anton Nemkin, a former FSB employee. Nemkin claims that he “has nothing to do with Mr. Bilyuchenko.”
Anton Nemkin. Photo: Roscongress
In the audio recording, a certain “Anton” is mentioned several times. This is a key condition of the agreement with the admin. In order to remain free, he was obliged to hand over the exchange’s user base: “And the fact that you didn’t hand over to the state and are free is only because they are registering for you. In any case, they will come to you. Because in any case, you promised and didn’t deliver. And he promised Anton. I promised them there at Lubyanka. Is it really possible to make promises to the FSB and not do them like this? - says a man with Malofeev’s voice.
In Bilyuchenko’s testimony to the investigation, he described in detail that at the end of April 2022 he stopped by Malofeev’s office, where “Anton” suggested Bilyuchenko give “cold wallets” with the assets of the WEX exchange, which the admin always carried with him.
Bilyuchenko handed over the flash drives, then he was taken to the FSB reception, where he told employees about the work of the exchange for 40 minutes. After a night in a hotel under the protection of Bilyuchenko, they again brought Malofeev to Malofeev’s office and demanded that he give up all the cryptocurrency stored in Wex wallets, saying that it would go to the “Russian FSB fund.”
At that time, about $450 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stored on the exchange.
Two weeks later, Bilyuchenko was again summoned to Moscow, where he directly transferred the cryptocurrency to other wallets. This happened in mid-May 2022.
According to the portals Blockchain.com and Explorer.Litecoin.net, on May 16, 30 thousand bitcoins and 700 thousand litecoins left the well-known wallets of the exchange.
After this, FSB officers arrived at the admin’s apartment and seized all the found computer equipment and external media with all the crypto exchange data and user base. A man with Malofeev’s voice warned about this: “You still have to surrender the base. It's not me, it's the state. And the fact that you didn’t surrender to the state and are free is only because they write in for you. […] If you work for a big story that the state needs, in this case you have a completely different approach. […] And who knows, maybe you’re promoting Al-Qaeda (the organization is recognized as terrorist, its activities are prohibited in Russia), Navalny?”
According to the source, having taken possession of the physical media, the people conducting the search were unable to obtain decryption keys.
Now Alexey Bilyuchenko is a witness in the case. The investigation is ongoing. An initiative group of injured investors is discussing a plan for further action on forums.
A moment of care from a UFO
This may be controversial, so before you comment, here are some important things to remember: How to Write a Comment and Survive
- Do not write offensive comments, do not get personal.
- Refrain from foul language and toxic behavior (even in a veiled form).
- To report comments that violate site rules, use the “Report” button (if available) or the feedback form.
What to do if: minus karma |
account blocked → Code of Habr authors and habraetiquette → Full version of site rules
BTC-E and the beginning of history
An online platform for trading cryptocurrencies and fiat money in real time, BTC-E, was launched in 2011. By 2014, it reached third place in the world in terms of trading volume in the Bitcoin-dollar pair and first place in the Bitcoin-ruble pair. At the same time, the owners of the exchange remained anonymous for a long time.
The exchange was mainly aimed at an English-speaking audience, although it supported Russian and Chinese versions. Holders with a balance of less than $1,000 in fiat or equivalent were not able to write to the chat.
In 2012, an unidentified hacker allegedly carried out a successful attack on the exchange's resources. He bought some Bitcoin, Litecoin and Namecoin and withdrew them. The administration reported that the attacker withdrew 4,500 BTC (about 40 thousand dollars at the then exchange rate). After technical work, suspicious transactions were manually reviewed, and user balances were restored to the time “before the attack.” After this, several more successful attacks were carried out.
On January 22, 2016, the exchange website was blocked by a decision of the Primorsky District Court of St. Petersburg. The very next day she switched to the mirror.
Riddles of 2022
On July 25, 2022, the btc-e.nz and btc-e.com websites went down at once. After 7-10 minutes, information about the start of technical work appeared on the official Twitter. A few days later, the media reported the detention of 38-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation A. Vinnik on suspicion of money laundering. According to the US Department of Justice indictment sent to the Greek authorities, Vinnik was accused of money laundering using cryptocurrencies and instruments of the BTC-E exchange.
On July 31, a message was circulated on forums about the seizure of all exchange servers by the FBI. The accounts were frozen and the domain was closed. An unknown distributor of information under the nickname btc-e.com also claimed that Vinnik is not the creator and head of the exchange, but rather one of the technical leaders. The case involved a company called Mayzus Financial Services Ltd, registered in London. Its owner confirmed that all accounts associated with BTC-E have been blocked.
Already on August 30, the same mysterious user announced the imminent restart of the platform. Three stages had to go through: transfer of all customer data by September 15, 2022, verification of customer data and restructuring of digital assets by a licensed financial company, audit and verification for compliance with KYC (“Know Your Customer”) requirements. On September 15, the exchange was truly reborn under the name WEX.
What happened to the BTC-e exchange or why there is no need for politics
In 2014, before his forced departure from Russia, the famous Russian IT entrepreneur and creator of the popular social network VKontakte Pavel Durov noted that it is impossible to conduct business in the country if you do not cooperate with the authorities. Who could have guessed how accurate his words would be when applied to the largest crypto exchange in Russia, BTC-e, which, by the way, started operating back in 2011.
It’s unlikely that Alexander Vinnik, an ordinary, modest guy from the provincial town of Kurgan, studying programming on an old ZX Spectrum computer, could have imagined that he would become, in his words, the chief consultant of Russia’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform. And I definitely didn’t expect this end to this project when I moved to Moscow in the early 2000s and “sawed” other people’s Internet ideas. Previously, there were sleepless nights of coding, and the creation of the website Wm-Exchanger.com for converting rubles into digital currency, and work at the WMExpress company, and a remarkable interest in the first cryptocurrency - Bitcoin (BTC). It was during this time that he became known as "Sasha - WME".
After his arrest in Chalkidiki (Greece), in July 2022, the influential IT tycoon Igor Ashmanov, speaking in his defense, wrote in a RIA Novosti article that Vinnik is a “strategic intellectual resource” of Russia.
The essence of the charges
WEX exchange scam
On July 26, 2022, the prosecutor for the Northern District of California (USA) filed an indictment against BTC-e for using “an international money laundering scheme and embezzlement of funds from the MtGox hack.” US prosecutors estimate that Vinnik, as head of the BTC-e exchange, helped launder between $4 and $9 billion related to cybercrime, drug trafficking, corruption and tax fraud.
In addition, law enforcement officials claimed that the client of the exchange was a group of hackers Fancy Bear (APT28, Sofacy, Iron Twilight and Pawn Storm), close to Russian intelligence. Her attacks targeted the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) and were funded by Bitcoin (BTC). BTC-e's alleged connection to Fancy Bear raised questions about whether Vinnik had information about Russian involvement in interference in the US elections. That's why there was such a fight to extradite him to the United States. A prisoner with such competence is a real gift for the American intelligence services.
Accusations of illegally obtaining funds from MtGox were based on an investigation by Tokyo coder Kim Nilsson, who allegedly managed to track some of the exchange’s stolen assets. As it turned out, over the course of 3 years, starting in 2011, thieves transferred bitcoins from several MtGox online wallets to virtual wallets controlled by Vinnik. Moreover, some of the stolen funds were then credited back to MtGox accounts, which the same Vinnik used in the period from 2011 to 2014.
According to American laws, these charges are more than enough to put Alexander Vinnik behind bars for at least 55 years—almost for life. Could Russia stand aside if there was even the slightest chance that some of the accusations would be confirmed in court proceedings? A rhetorical question.
Immediately after Vinnik’s arrest, the Russian side submitted its own request to the Greek authorities for his extradition to his native land on charges of theft in the amount of $11,000. In June 2022, Russia again brought forward a more serious charge: this time it was about cyber fraud for $12.4 million. Then France filed a request, accusing Vinnik of fraud against French citizens.
Entry on the portal
// Source: /mos-gorsud.ru
As foreign media note, Moscow’s usual “tactics have been to bring significantly lighter charges against some suspects of Russian hacking when they are detained on foreign territory.” However, the struggle between the United States and Russia “for Vinnik” continues to this day with varying degrees of success. The succession of courts resembles a tug of war between equal rivals. And Vinnik still remains under arrest in Greece. It’s hard to say how this epic will end, because the political stakes at stake are too high.
"Vinnik's Treasure"
Adding to the uncertainty is the hunt for “Vinnik’s treasure,” which includes profits from the platform’s operation and user money stuck after the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange. Presumably this is from $200 to $500 million. By the way, among the applicants is the US Department of the Treasury, which is demanding a fine of $110 million from the exchange.
The defendant's lawyer, Timofey Musatov, adds intrigue. According to him, after the seizure of BTC-e servers by US intelligence services, about $6 billion disappeared from them. Moreover, part of the assets suddenly turned up on the WEX exchange. But where are the others?
“The US monetary system controls the global financial environment. The emergence of any new ideas to combat this control frightens and worries the current controllers as a threat to their dominance. As such, the creators of these technologies are thrown on the fire of the Inquisition,” says Musatov about the reason for his arrest.
Vinnik himself does not recognize himself as a criminal, stating that, following this logic, any transfer operator can be accused of money laundering. But how does he know the origin of the payment, known only to the owner? I must say, Sasha-WME seems to be completely desperate. In his April letter, he asks Russian President Vladimir Putin to take care of his family in the event of his death...
Briefly about BTC-e
The BTC-e website was registered in Crimea in June 2011 and became available to traders just a month later. According to law enforcement officers, the problem of the exchange from the very beginning was the absence of any measures “to combat money laundering.” All that was required from the user to create an account was a username and email address. It seemed that BTC-e deliberately avoided collecting transaction data from its clients.
BTC-e interface
// Source: BTC-e website
The account was replenished either through the Mayzus Financial Services service, or through the so-called BTC-e codes. In the first case, users transferred money from their bank accounts to one of two companies managed by Mayzus Financial Services - Canton Business Corp and Always Efficient - to purchase coins for fiat. Secondly, the client could buy a code in WebMoney, use one of the online exchangers and banking services, such as 60cek, PayGet, MinedTrade, Prostocash, X-pay, Sberbank, Private24, Tinkoff, VTB24, Alfa-Bank, Qiwi, Yandex Money, or other means. The owner of the code could then use it on the BTC-e website. The codes also worked in reverse order. Bitcoin holders could transfer them to a BTC-e account, receive a code and sell the cryptocurrency for fiat money to a third party.
Immediately after Vinnik’s arrest, the exchange website stopped working. So it turns out that BTC-e closed on a high, reaching its peak in June 2022, when anonymous transactions worth $66 million were processed daily! A year later, in August, the American business publication Wall Street Journal will write that “60-70% of all cases of criminal cryptocurrency until 2016” passed through this Russian platform.
The moral is like a fable - political games are incompatible with business. But what should talented Russian IT entrepreneurs do if “friendship” with the authorities is an indispensable condition for the functioning of a large project? However, this is not only true in Russia.
Cryptocurrency baron
Vinnik's arrest raised a lot of questions. The US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) immediately demanded that the BTC-E exchange pay a fine of $110 million. The FBI clearly indicated that Vinnik was the manager of the exchange and had access to the administration of transactions. FinCEN demanded that Vinnik be personally fined $12 million.
It is worth noting that on the BTC-E exchange, counterparties from the United States were indeed the most active in trading. Over six years, they conducted over 21 thousand transactions worth $296 million in Bitcoin alone and tens of thousands of other transactions in altcoins. Basically, all transactions were made within the United States through servers also located on the territory of this state.
Surprisingly, regulators for six years (!) could not suspend the activities of BTC-E, despite the fact that for organizations providing financial services (MSB), a 180-day registration period was established from the beginning of activity. Registration had to be renewed every two years. The activities of cryptocurrency platforms like BTC-E have not been regulated for a long time, but FinCEN has issued special guidance for them. For a long time, the Exchange did not develop the minimum necessary conditions for its internal security and anti-money laundering policies. Drafts of such documents appeared only in May 2022. Formally, all this time it acted legally, because the standards for the activities of crypto exchanges appeared much later than 2011.
In addition, there were no mechanisms for monitoring transactions and canceling transactions suspected of illegality. Moreover, some users actually discussed the possibility of withdrawing illegally mined funds in an open chat. BTC-E hid records of thousands of transactions worth over 2 thousand US dollars from clients convicted of committing crimes. It provided an opportunity to bring into the “shadow” over 300 thousand bitcoins stolen from the Mt.Gox exchange. Ensured transactions (more than 1,000) on the unregistered crypto exchange Coin.MX. Did not prevent the transfer of 800 thousand dollars received from the operation of the Cryptolocker virus. Participated in transactions of the Liberty Reserve website, the owners of which were subsequently accused of laundering $6 billion.
Users were “finished off” by the information that just before the closure, $95 million was withdrawn from BTC-E accounts in one payment. Vinnik, as it turned out, managed to evade the international wanted list for six years, and in total, according to American law enforcement officers, he could have contributed to the withdrawal of up to $4 billion.
Alexander is currently under investigation under a European arrest warrant. He has not been extradited to the United States; Russia is simultaneously seeking his extradition. Recently, France accused Vinnik of hacking mail and extortion. According to the local intelligence services, Vinnik, while on French territory, in the period from January 1, 2016 to June 14, 2022 (that is, having been in a Greek prison for a year), allegedly committed crimes as part of a criminal group.
What happened to the WEX exchange
On July 12, 2022, WEX went offline, announcing technical work. After a couple of hours, work resumed, but it turned out to be impossible to withdraw funds, while depositing into accounts worked properly. After some more time, little-used USDT, ZEC, and PPC were opened for withdrawal. For the withdrawal of BTC and other “large assets” they charged a commission that was tens of times higher than analogues on other exchanges.
The day before, the cost of cryptocurrencies on the exchange significantly exceeded the market average. This alarmed some bidders, but most of them did not have time to withdraw funds. On July 16, the withdrawal of all assets became impossible, and since August 23, no official messages have been received from the alleged owners at all.
At the initial stage, the CEO of WEX called himself 31-year-old Dmitry Vasiliev - the sole owner of World Exchange Services. According to some reports, in 2017 he created a structure with the loud name “International Institute for Blockchain Development” and developed the project of the BTC-up exchange, similar in design to BTC-E. In later interviews, he referred to himself as a “nominal director” and other positions with vague powers. In his words, the exchange earned from 3 to 5 million dollars a month on commissions and 500-600 thousand on withdrawals. They planned to sell the platform for 3-10 million.
Vasiliev’s reservations about the fact that he himself invests in Prizm (whose founder Alexei Muratov was accused of creating a financial pyramid) are interesting. In the same interview he hinted:
"We live in a world of veiled pyramids."
Did this apply to WEX? In any case, Vasiliev did not disclose information about how and for what amount he received data about the wallets of BTC-E participants and who acted as the authorized person for the transaction.
The ex-head of the largest Russian crypto exchange Wex was arrested in Warsaw
The Wex cryptocurrency exchange launched in September 2022. She had information about clients of the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange, which ceased to exist in 2022. The founder of BTC-e is Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, who was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the United States, where he is accused of laundering between $4 billion and $9 billion through the exchange he created. In addition to the United States, Russia and France sought Vinnik’s extradition. In 2022, he himself admitted to Russian law enforcement officers of the theft of 750 million rubles. He reported that he wanted “voluntary” extradition to Russia. In January 2022, Greek authorities extradited him to France, where Vinnik was suspected of identity theft and extortion. At the end of last year, a Paris court sentenced Vinnik to five years in prison. His lawyer, Frederic Belo, said the appeal would take about four months. However, the sentence did not mean that he would spend the entire term in France. In February, a court in Paris rejected the defense's appeal and left the Russian in custody.
Former militiaman Sailor from the DPR refused to buy the Wex crypto exchange Technologies and media
Read on RBC Pro
How employers and employees are suing over “flash drive” dismissals
How BMW and Heineken are reshaping supply chains - Financial Times
Inflation is breaking records. These 4 stocks will help protect against it in 2022
What to expect for the stock market in 2022 - Financial Times
As RBC wrote, by the end of 2022, the daily trading volume on Wex reached $80 million, it was one of the twenty most popular crypto exchanges in the world, but by the summer of 2022, turnover dropped to $20 million. At the beginning of its work, Wex management promised to pay off BTC-e debts . The operator of the site was listed as Singaporean World Exchange Services, its sole owner was named Dmitry Vasiliev, a native of Minsk. The creators of the new exchange purchased “digital assets” from the owners of the closed platform - information about users and their crypto wallets. Vasiliev did not disclose the amount of the transaction, and allegedly did not know the names of the ex-owners of BTC-e. Vasiliev later stated that since 2018 he has nothing to do with Wex. In 2022, it was reported that he was wanted in Kazakhstan.
The BBC wrote that the real owner of Wex under Vasiliev could be a resident of Novosibirsk, Alexey Bilyuchenko, Vinnik’s partner in BTC-e. After Wex, Vasiliev tried to develop his own crypto projects, recently living in St. Petersburg.
In July 2022, RBC wrote that Kiev entrepreneur Dmitry Khavchenko, who fought in eastern Ukraine under the call sign “Sailor,” tried to buy the Wex cryptocurrency exchange. The Russian entrepreneur and chairman of the board of directors of the group, Konstantin Malofeev, could be behind “Sailor,” as the BBC noted. Malofeev himself always denied that he had anything to do with Wex. At the end of November 2022, the publication found out that the Singaporean company World Exchange Services, the official operator of the Wex exchange, had a new owner. The new owner was Muscovite Daria Khavchenko, the 29-year-old daughter of “Moryachka”. Khavchenko himself told the publication that he initially planned to take over the exchange. However, according to him, the employees of the Singapore business registry were not satisfied with something in his past - perhaps participation in the armed conflict in the Donbass.
In the summer of 2022, the BBC learned about Vasiliev’s detention in Italy. The official reason for the detention was not given, but on the website of the police of the Basilicata region, one could find a message dated July 16, in which, without indicating the name, it was reported that a 32-year-old man of “Belarusian nationality” had been detained. It specified that the man was detained at the request of Interpol in connection with a criminal case opened in Kazakhstan. He allegedly illegally took possession of a large sum of money. In August 2022, the publication wrote that the Italian authorities released Vasiliev, despite the fact that criminal cases were opened against him in Russia, Belarus and China.
