{"id":12735,"date":"2025-02-12T16:27:37","date_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=12735"},"modified":"2025-02-12T16:27:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-12T16:27:37","slug":"us-to-release-jailed-btc-e-operator-vinnik-in-russia-prisoner-swap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=12735","title":{"rendered":"US to Release Jailed BTC-e Operator Vinnik in Russia Prisoner Swap"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Alexander Vinnik, the jailed former operator of once mighty bitcoin exchange BTC-e, is being released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Vinnik, 44, is being swapped with jailed American teacher Marc Fogel, who returned to the U.S. last night after negotiators struck a surprise breakthrough with the Kremlin. It had not immediately been clear who was on the other side of the deal.<\/p>\n<p>But BTC-e was  one of the early exchanges that popularized the buying and selling of the world&#8217;s most popular digital asset. It had over 1 million customers and moved over $9 billion of transactions between 2011 and 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Its popularity also fostered a thriving criminal underground who relied on it to move in and out of ill-gotten bitcoin proceeds, according to U.S. prosecutors. They accused Vinnik of operating BTC-e &#8220;with the intent to promote&#8221; drug dealers, money launders and other cybercriminals, and caused the loss of $121 million. <\/p>\n<p>Vinnik was arrested in Greece in 2017 and ultimately extradited to the U.S. He pled guilty to money laundering conspiracy in 2024 and faced a maximum of 20 years in prison. <\/p>\n<p>His lawyers had previously lobbied unsuccessfully for his inclusion in other high-profile U.S.-Russia prisoner exchanges, like last year&#8217;s deal over formerly jailed Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexander Vinnik, the jailed former operator of once mighty bitcoin exchange BTC-e, is being released from U.S. custody as part of a prisoner exchange with Russia. Vinnik, 44, is being swapped with jailed American teacher Marc Fogel, who returned to the U.S. last night after negotiators struck a surprise breakthrough with the Kremlin. It had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-12735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}