ATHENS, October 3. /TASS/. Prosecutors in the Greek city of Thessaloniki have launched criminal proceedings against Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, who is imprisoned on US cyber crime charges, his attorney Timofei Musatov said on Wednesday.
"The prosecutors in the city of Thessaloniki have begun criminal proceedings against Alexander Vinnik," the attorney said.
On Wednesday, two investigators of Greek financial police visited the Diavata prison in Thessaloniki and announced that Vinnik would be interrogated as part of criminal proceedings against him, Musatov said.
Vinnik was detained in Greece on July 25, 2017, at America’s request, where he is accused of laundering four to nine billion dollars through the now non-existent BTC-e cryptocurrency trading platform. Russia has sought Vinnik’s extradition as well, while France sent a similar request in June.
As for the charges brought by the US, Vinnik told TASS that he was only a technical expert at the BTC-e cryptocurrency trading platform. "I gave some advice to that platform. That’s not a crime, and the exchange itself is not a crime, it is just a platform for exchanging cryptocurrency," the Russian national explained.
Greece’s Supreme Court earlier ruled to extradite Vinnik to the US and, later on, to Russia. Due to the conflicting extradition requests, the decision on Vinnik’s extradition is likely to be made by the country’s Minister of Justice or, possibly, the Greek leadership.