The US Department of Justice charged on Friday Russian nationals Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner with hacking a cryptocurrency exchange and illegally operating another one
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th June, 2023) The US Department of Justice charged on Friday Russian nationals Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner with hacking a cryptocurrency exchange and illegally operating another one.
"Bilyuchenko and Verner are charged in the Southern District of New York with conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins from the 2011 hack of Mt. Gox (the 'SDNY Case'). Bilyuchenko is separately charged in the Northern District of California with conspiring with Alexander Vinnik to operate the illicit cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e from 2011 to 2017 (the 'NDCA Case'). The SDNY Case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel. The NDCA Case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Chhabria," the department said in a statement.
Bilyuchenko, Verner and their co-conspirators are accused of conducting several financial transactions to steal bitcoins from Japan based Mt. Gox and conceal their origins, between 2011 and 2014, after unlawfully gaining access to the platform servers and its private keys, the indictment notice reads.
During the same period, the Russian nationals and their acolytes fraudulently transferred the 647,000 bitcoins from Mt. Gox wallets to addresses generated and controlled by Bilyuchenko and Verner, the notice continues.
The significant amount of cryptocurrency stolen and the revelation that most of the customers assets had disappeared from the cryptocurrency platform eventually caused the insolvency of Mt. Gox in 2014.
The notice added that the funds were then used by Bilyuchenko and Verner to set up another platform, the BTC-e virtual Currency exchange, known for laundering the funds for cyber-criminals across the world.
Some of the criminal actors for whom the platform laundered money included computer hackers, individuals involved with ransomwares, narcotics, as well as corrupt public officials, DoJ's statement pursued.
The Department of Justice will tirelessly work to identify cyber criminals no matter their location the statement added, noting the DoJ's "long arms and even longer memory" for crimes that harm the community.
