The United States accuses two Russian hackers

The US Department of Justice has filed charges against two Russian nationals, who are accused of participating in the Mt.Gox hack, which was discovered in 2014.

according to documents judicial Alexei Belyuchenko, 43, and Alexander Werner, 29, are two accused Russian hackers. Conspiring to launder approximately 647,000 bitcoins (BTC) illegally obtained from the Mt. Gox. It should be noted that the total amount of the theft will be close to 850,000 BTC, as per what has been reported in the case so far.

Bilyuchenko also faces charges of collaborating with Alexander Vinnik in operating the BTC-e platform from 2011 to 2017. In this location, money laundering from illegal sources could have been facilitated.

The US Department of Justice highlighted the significance of the charges, asserting that Beluchenko and Werner had stolen a large amount of cryptocurrency from Gox Mountain, which contributed to the bankruptcy of the exchange. The case is being investigated by the FBI, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS-CI), the US Secret Service, and the Office of Homeland Security Investigation (HSI), along with the help of Japanese and Greek authorities.

At the time, Mt. Gox is the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, with thousands of users worldwide. According to the US Justice statement, the hackers had unauthorized access to the Mt. Gox in September 2011. From then until May 2014, they had stolen at least 647,000 bitcoins from that platform. Again, it should be made clear here that the prevailing version of the event is that it happened in one “result” in 2014.

The latest developments that have emerged in this case relate to partial refunds to the victims. Although this was scheduled to happen in the first half of 2023, The return ended up being postponed until the end of October this yearas reported by CriptoNoticias.

Laundering stolen bitcoins from Mount Gox

To hide and filter stolen bitcoins, Bilyuchenko and Verner are accused of entering into a fraudulent advertising contract with a bitcoin brokerage firm Based in the Southern District of New York. Through this contract and under the pretext of advertising services, they requested bank transfers to foreign accounts they controlled, while the brokerage firm received “credits” in another cryptocurrency trading platform.

Additionally, Bilyuchenko worked in collaboration with Vinnik and others to operate the BTC-e platform from 2011 until it was shut down by authorities in July 2017. During that time, BTC-e facilitated the movement, laundering, and storage of criminal proceeds. of various illegal activities carried out by cybercriminals, according to the US authorities.

At the end of 2022, there were mysterious movements of a total of 10,000 BTC from one of the “sleeping” BTC-e wallets. With Vinnik deprived of his freedom, it is not possible to determine who is behind these operations, which this newspaper reported in due time.