Vinnik has been detained on July 26 in the Greek city of Thessaloniki; the arrest was a complete surprise for the ‘hacker’ vacationing with his family. The capture of the Russian citizen was a result of a special operation carried out by the FBI that has charged Vinnik with laundering $4 billion through BTC-e Bitcoin Exchange and theft of 850 thousand BTC (some $500 million at the then exchange rate) from Mt.Gox Japanese exchange.
Хищение средств одной из самых крупных бирж по торговле криптовалютой Mt.Gox вызвало массовые выступления
Theft of funds from Mt.Gox, a major cryptocurrency exchange, had sparked mass protests
The FBI believes that Vinnik had created at the exchange operational conditions for cashing out revenues from the global drug trafficking and other shadow spheres of economy.
After the arrest of Vinnik, analysts from Wiz Security (WizSec) investigation group announced that they had earlier determined the complicity of the Russian native in the theft of Mt.Gox funds.