Feds reportedly charge two people for the $400 million Mt. Gox Bitcoin hack. The DOJ (Department of Justice) has now accused Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner of reportedly laundering 647,000 stolen Bitcoins back in 2011.
$400 Million Mt. Gox Bitcoin Hack
The US federal government has now charged two Russian nationals directly in connection with the series of hacks that reportedly brought down the Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange back in 2014. the Department of Justice in a press release on Friday, announced that it is unsealing a 2019 indictment charging Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner with conspiring to launder 647,000 Bitcoins that were stolen from the exchange, which was at the time worth around $400 million.
The government at the moment is separately charging Bilyuchenko for working with Alexander Vinnik — who the DOJ indicted back in 2017 before he was then extradited to the US last fall — for operating BTC-e, which is a now-defunct crypto exchange that served as “one of the primary ways by which cyber criminals around the world transferred, laundered, and stored the criminal proceeds of their illegal activities.”
The Government’s Case Against Vinnik
And at the time of Vinnik’s indictment, the government alleged that the stolen funds from Mt. Gox passed through BTC-e and wallets that were associated with Vinnik. And right about now, the DOJ alleges that Bilyuchenko, Verner, as well as other co-conspirators, laundered more than 300,000 Bitcoins that had been stolen from Mt. Gox as well.
Owner of Mt. Gox and CEO Mark Karpeles was reportedly arrested back in 2015 and then indicted in Japan on charges that are inclusive of embezzlement and aggravated breach of trust. But in 2019, Karpeles was however acquitted on most of them, with a suspended sentence that was applied for falsifying data. Today he however retweeted a post that was linked to the unsealed indictment.
Assistant Attorney General’s Comment on The Case
“As alleged in the indictments, starting in 2011, Bilyuchenko and Verner stole a massive amount of cryptocurrency from Mt. Gox, contributing to the exchange’s ultimate insolvency,” Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. in a statement stated. “Armed with the ill-gotten gains from Mt. Gox, Bilyuchenko allegedly went on to help set up the notorious BTC-e virtual currency exchange, which laundered funds for cyber criminals worldwide.”
And while Bilyuchenko faces charges with conspiracy to commit money laundering as well as operating an unlicensed money services business and more than 20 years behind bars, Verner is on the other hand charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
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