WASHINGTON, August 5. /TASS/. Russian diplomats will provide the necessary consular and legal assistance to Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, who was earlier extradited from Greece to the United States, and will arrange a phone call with him, Nadezhda Shumova, head of the consular department of Russia’s embassy in Washington, told TASS on Friday.
"This morning we received a notice from the US authorities about the arrest of a Russian national. Now we are clarifying information about his whereabouts and information about his lawyers. We are arranging a phone call with the detained man. We will give him the required consular and legal assistance," she said.
It was reported earlier on Friday that Vinnik, who a Paris court had ruled to extradite to Greece, was immediately transferred to the United States.
On July 25, 2017, Alexander Vinnik, a Russian IT specialist, was detained during his vacation in Greece at the request of the United States, where he is accused of laundering $4-9 billion through the no longer existing crypto exchange BTC-e.
On December 19, 2019, Greek Justice Minister Konstantionos Tsiaras ruled that Vinnik be extradited first to France, then to the United States and eventually to Russia. In December 2020, a Paris court sentenced him to five years in prison and ordered a fine of more than 100,000 euros.
Vinnik himself said back in Greece that he would agree to return to Russia and stand a court trial in his homeland. In Russia, he is charged with embezzlement of over 600,000 rubles ($9,800) and computer fraud worth 750,000 million rubles (some $12.2 million).