U.S. law enforcement agents have “kidnapped” crypto
entrepreneur Denis Dubnikov in Mexico, before transferring him to the
Netherlands where he was arrested, his lawyer told Russian media.
Dubnikov is suspected of money laundering and faces up to 20 years in
prison if extradited to the United States.
FBI Accused of Kidnapping Russian Citizen With Cryptocurrency Business
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has “practically kidnapped” Russian national Denis Dubnikov in Mexico, later arrested
in Amsterdam on Nov. 1, his lawyer Arkady Bukh alleged, speaking to
Sputnik. The co-founder of crypto trading platforms Coyote Crypto and
Eggchange was first held at the airport in Mexico City while on vacation
and then boarded a flight to the Netherlands where he was detained by
Dutch authorities. The defense attorney explained:
Mexico has not let him enter the country. The US
intelligence services have put him on a plane to the Netherlands and
sent him there having paid for his ticket. In other words, he was
kidnapped in fact.
According to Bukh’s description of the events, Dubnikov was expelled
from Mexico because the country’s extradition policy is not as “ideal”
as that of Holland. “They have bought a ticket, in other words, they
have in fact kidnapped him and sent him to the Netherlands because
extradition from the Netherlands is in fact guaranteed,” the lawyer
elaborated further.
The legal representative also revealed that the Russian citizen is
currently held in a Dutch jail and noted that the defense expects his
extradition to the United States. Denis Dubnikov has been accused of
conspiracy to commit money laundering through wallets operated by his
crypto businesses and may face up to 20 years in prison in the U.S.,
Arkady Bukh detailed, adding:
So far, we do not agree to extradition, but we will
probably give our consent later because the Netherlands is a country
where the fight against extradition is statistically meaningless. We are
studying: maybe it is worth agreeing to a quick extradition and sorting
it out here.
Dubnikov’s Arrest Linked to Ryuk Ransomware Group
According to the Sputnik report, Dubnikov’s detention is among the first arrests in the case against the Ryuk
group which is linked to ransomware attacks on hospitals in the U.S.
Authorities there believe Dubnikov has received hundreds of thousands of
dollars in bitcoin, a portion of which was allegedly obtained through
Ryuk ransomware strikes.
Denis Dubnikov is not the first Russian national with a
cryptocurrency business detained on request by the U.S. In 2017, IT
specialist Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece during a trip with
his family. American prosecutors claim Vinnik, an alleged operator of
the infamous BTC-e, has laundered up to $9 billion through the now-defunct exchange. He was later extradited to France and sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering. In May, a French court rejected an extradition request from Moscow.
The news of Dubnikov’s arrest came after a Bloomberg report unveiled
that his Eggchange is being investigated for money laundering in Europe
and the United States. The U.S. has been targeting other Russian crypto
platforms lately, based on similar accusations.
In September, the Treasury Department blacklisted
Suex, a Czech-registered crypto broker operating out of offices in
Russia and suspected of processing hundreds of millions of dollars in
crypto transactions related to scams, darknet markets, and ransomware
actors such as Ryuk. This week, the department sanctioned Chatex, a crypto exchange bot linked to Suex, as well as two other ransomware operators.
source link : https://news.bitcoin.com/us-kidnapped-russian-crypto-businessman-denis-dubnikov-lawyer-says/
