The US Justice Department says Alexander Vinnik, who was arrested on money laundering charges at a Greek hotel in late July, facilitated crimes including computer hacking, fraud and drug trafficking by laundering at least $4 billion through BTC-e, an exchange used to trade bitcoin and other digital currencies since 2011.
The 37-year-old faces up to 55 years in prison if extradited to the United States. He denies the allegations against him, according to Greek media reports, and BTC-e has said he never worked for the exchange. Reuters was unable to reach BTC-e or a lawyer representing Vinnik for comment.
Vinnik is now one of seven Russians arrested or indicted on US cyber crime charges this year. On average, just two Russian cyber criminals were extradited to the United States each year between 2010 and the start of this year, according to a Reuters review of US Justice Department filings, Russian government statements and sources briefed on the matter.
The increase to a record level shows that although President Donald Trump is trying to improve relations with Moscow, the United States has not shied away from pursuing Russians suspected of cyber crime.
The prosecutions coincide with intensified scrutiny of Russian hackers since US intelligence officials determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election using cyber warfare methods to help Trump.
The Kremlin has denied accusations it interfered in elections in the United States or elsewhere.
But US opposition lawmakers have questioned whether Trump is willing to respond forcefully to Moscow over its actions in cyberspace, and the White House has avoided publicly accusing Russia over recent politically-motivated hacking attacks.
Alarmed by Trump’s proposal to create a joint US-Russia cyber security unit, US lawmakers have also drawn up a draft bill that would require him to notify lawmakers before he does so.
Four US federal law enforcement officials, who discussed the recent arrests with Reuters on condition of anonymity, said there had been no centralised effort to step up action against Russian cyber criminals under Trump.
The increase in the number of arrests stemmed from breakthroughs made in investigations before last year’s election, two of them said to the reporter.
The FBI referred all questions to the US Justice Department. The Justice Department said it did not track arrests or indictments by nationality and declined further comment.