- The men are accused of laundering money from the hacking of Mt.Gox
- They stole a total of 647,000 BTC
- One of them is facing another charge
The United States Department of Justice charges two Russian citizens with money laundering. The agency said in a statement that Alexey Bilyuchenko, 43, and Alexander Werner, 29, stole approximately 647,000 bitcoins from the Mt.Gox hack. Biliuchenko is also accused of conspiring with Alexander Vinnik to run BTC-e from 2011 to 2017.
According to the charges, starting in 2011, Biliuchenko and Werner carried out a major theft of cryptocurrency from Mt.Gox, which led to the complete bankruptcy of that exchange. Using illegally acquired funds from Mt.Gox, Biliuchenko allegedly helped create the illegal BTC-e exchange, which effectively laundered money for cybercriminals around the world.
U.S. Attorney, Damian Williams, of the Southern District of New York said:
“While hackers are constantly improving their fraud techniques, prosecutors and law enforcement have also become experts in the latest technology being abused for malicious purposes. Biliuchenko and Werner thought they could outsmart the law by using the latest and most sophisticated methods to launder huge amounts of cryptocurrency. But the charges demonstrate our ability to persistently pursue these alleged criminals, no matter how sophisticated their schemes, until they are brought to justice.”
For a long period, Biliuchenko and his group allegedly had control over a digital currency that provided criminals around the world, including hackers, malware developers, drug dealers and corrupt government officials, with the ability to launder billions of dollars.</nbsp;
The Justice Department is currently. An IRS spokesman said that Biliuchenko and his co-conspirators will soon learn that the Justice Department has a far-reaching capability and a vigilant memory for crimes that harm our communities.