Greece SC orders extradition of Russian accused of laundering $4 billion using Bitcoin

A Russian accused of laundering $4 billion using Bitcoin digital currency has been ordered to be extradited to the United States by Greece's Supreme Court.

Alexander Vinnik owned an exchange for cyber currency and was accused of money laundering using cryptocurrency.

Vinnik was first indicted in July by an American court for charges involving money laundering, identity theft and facilitating drug trafficking.

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He has been held in a Greek jail since his arrest on July 25 in the northern Greek tourist resort of Halkidiki.

Vinnik was also charged with receiving funds from the infamous hack of Mt. Gox -- an earlier digital currency exchange that eventually failed, in part due to losses attributable to hacking.

Although Vinnik denies the accusations, he has said he would accept extradition to his home country. Russia has also filed a demand to extradite Vinnik so he can stand trial on separate fraud charges while two Greek courts separately approved both extradition requests in October.

In Russia, Vinnik is wanted on separate fraud charges totalling 9,500 euros.

The final say on Vinnik's extradition now rests with Greece's justice minister.

Alexander Vinnik's BTC-e was founded in 2011 and became one of the world's largest and most widely used digital currency exchanges.

In addition, BTC-e "was noted for its role in numerous ransomware and other cyber-criminal activity". It allegedly received more than $4 billion (3.4 billion euros) worth of Bitcoin over the course of its operation, AFP reported.

BTC-e was slapped with a whopping $110 million fine for "willfully violating" US anti-money laundering laws.

Vinnik has been ordered to pay $12 million by the US Treasury Department.

(With inputs from AFP)