Paris (AFP)
The Paris prosecutor's office has demanded a criminal trial against Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected of extortion and money laundering on a bitcoin exchange platform and who is also claimed by Washington and Moscow, AFP learned on Wednesday. from a source close to the case, confirmed by the prosecution.
The public prosecutor also asked for the continued detention of this 40-year-old man who was arrested in Greece in July 2017 and handed over to the French judicial authorities last January.
It is now up to the investigating judges to decide whether or not to refer him to court.
In its indictment dated June 29, the prosecution asked that Mr. Vinnik, who rejects the charges against him, be tried for extortion and attempted extortion, money laundering in an organized gang and criminal association with a view to committing a punishable offense. of 10 years' imprisonment.
He also wants him to appear for fraudulent access and maintenance in automated data processing systems, some of which are implemented by the State, as well as for the introduction or fraudulent modification of data in these systems, and for hindering their operation. .
According to the prosecution, the alleged facts took place from 2016 to 2018 and the victims are many individuals, communities and companies.
Contacted by AFP, Vinnik's lawyers declined to comment.
Suspected by the United States of being the mastermind of one of the main bitcoin exchange platforms in the world, BTC-e, accused of laundering money from criminal activities, the Russian national was arrested in a tourist resort in Greece in July 2017, on the basis of a US arrest warrant.
In January 2017, a US federal prosecutor had indeed pronounced 21 charges against him. In addition, the financial police of the US Treasury, FinCen, had civilly ordered BTC-e to pay a fine of 110 million dollars. He himself had been fined $ 12 million.
Also claimed by the Russian and French courts, Mr. Vinnik wanted to be extradited to Russia, where he is being prosecuted for a scam of 9,500 euros, out of all proportion to the BTC-e case.
But the European mandate being a priority for the Greek authorities, it ended up being handed over to France at the end of January, where he was immediately indicted and imprisoned.
In France, an investigation was opened in 2016 when several dozen individuals and legal entities, victims of Locky ransomware, lodged a complaint.
However, the investigations made it possible to connect this malicious software, which blocks and encrypts data and only unblocks them against payment of a ransom, to Mr. Vinnik. According to the courts, the amount of the damage was estimated in 2018 at around 135 million euros.
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