His lawyer told the Russian media that U.S. law enforcement officers “kidnapped” cryptocurrency entrepreneur Dennis Dubnikov in Mexico, then transferred him to the Netherlands and arrested him. Dubnikov is suspected of money laundering. If he is extradited to the United States, he will face up to 20 years in prison.

FBI accused of kidnapping Russian citizens for cryptocurrency business

Federal Bureau of Investigations(FBI) Later in Mexico “actually kidnapped” the Russian national Denis Dubnikov (Denis Dubnikov) Arrested On November 1, his lawyer Arkady Bukh was interviewed by Sputnik in Amsterdam. The co-founders of crypto trading platforms Coyote Crypto and Eggchange were first detained at the airport in Mexico City while on vacation, and then boarded a flight to the Netherlands, where he was detained by the Dutch authorities. The defense lawyer explained:

Mexico did not let him in. The US intelligence service has sent him on a plane to the Netherlands and sent him there after paying for the ticket. In other words, he was actually kidnapped.

According to Buch’s description of the incident, Dubnikov was expelled from Mexico because the country’s extradition policy was not as “ideal” as the Netherlands. “They bought tickets, in other words, they actually kidnapped him and sent him to the Netherlands, because extradition from the Netherlands is actually guaranteed,” the lawyer further elaborated.

The legal representative also revealed that the Russian citizen is currently being held in a Dutch prison and pointed out that the defense hopes to extradite him to the United States. Denis Dubnikov was accused of conspiracy to launder money through wallets operated by his crypto business and could face up to 20 years in prison in the United States, Arkady Bukh added in detail:

So far, we disagree with extradition, but we may agree later, because the Netherlands is a statistically meaningless country to crack down on extradition. We are studying: it might be worth agreeing to a quick extradition and sorting it out here.

Dubnikov was arrested in connection with the Ryuk ransomware group

According to Sputnik’s report, Dubnikov’s detention was one of the first arrests in the case. Luc Organizations related to the ransomware attack on American hospitals believe that Dubnikov has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin, some of which were allegedly obtained through the Ryuk ransomware attack.

Denis Dubnikov is not the first Russian national to detain cryptocurrency businesses at the request of the United States. In 2017, IT expert Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece while traveling with his family.U.S. prosecutors claim that Vinnik is a notorious operator Bitcoin-e, Laundering up to 9 billion U.S. dollars through the now-defunct exchange.He was later extradited to France and Sentenced Imprisoned for five years for money laundering. In May, the French court Refused Extradition request from Moscow.

The news of Dubnikov’s arrest came after Bloomberg reported that his Eggchange was being investigated for money laundering in Europe and the United States. Based on similar allegations, the United States has recently been targeting other Russian encryption platforms.

In September, the Ministry of Finance Blacklisted Suex is a crypto broker registered in the Czech Republic with an office in Russia, suspected of handling hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto transactions related to fraud, dark web markets, and ransomware participants (such as Ryuk).This week, the department Sanctioned Chatex, an encrypted exchange robot associated with Suex and two other ransomware operators.

Do you want the Dutch authorities to extradite Dennis Dubnikov to the United States? Tell us in the comments section below.

Image Source: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons