The U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) has charged two Russian nationals for their involvement in the laundering of funds acquired through the hack of the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange Mt. Gox.
According to now unsealed indictment, Alexey Bilyuchenko (43) and Aleksandr Verner (29) were charged with conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 (approximately $18.6 billion) stolen bitcoins as a result of unauthorized access to a server holding crypto wallets used by Mt. Gox customers.
Their crimes began in September 2011 when Bilyuchenko and Verner and other co-conspirators allegedly 'gained unauthorized access to the server holding the cryptocurrency wallets for Mt. Gox', which was the largest bitcoin exchange in the world at the time.
The defendants and their accomplices moved the bitcoin to their accounts at the now-defunct crypto exchanges, BTC-e and Trade Hill.
The indictment mentions that BTC-e was used to launder the proceeds of various criminal activities including hacking and drug trafficking from its establishment in 2011 to its shutdown in 2017 and that the BTC-e exchange was opened by Bilyuchenko in 2011 in collaboration with Alexander Vinnik.
The DOJ also said that Bilyuchenko, Verner and other unnamed co-conspirators used an unnamed New York-based bitcoin brokerage service to launder funds, ultimately moving over $6.6 million into "overseas bank accounts."
The whereabouts of Bilyuchenko and Verner are currently not fully known, in July 2017 Bilyuchenko and Vinnik went on holiday to Greece, unaware US federal agents were on their trail.
The not-so-lucky Vinnik was nabbed shortly after and it appears that he was extradited to the U.S. last August. He has since lobbied to be part of a potential prisoner swap between the U.S. and Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported late last month.
Bilyuchenko on the other hand who was staying elsewhere in Greece avoided his arrest by destroying his computer and immediately flying back to Moscow.
The money laundering charges leveled against the pair could lead to a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each of them if convicted. Bilyuchenko also potentially faces an extra 25-year jail term for operating an unlicensed money services business.
$18.6 billion could keep The Tor Times running for at least 3 months!