MOSCOW, August 5. /TASS/. Moscow is outraged by Athens’ unfriendly actions, which extradited Russian national Alexander Vinnik to "reprisals of America’s punitive justice," Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday flowing Vinnik’s extradition from Greece to the United States.
"We are outraged by the unfriendly action of the Greek authorities, who, under the pressure of the United States indulging in a literal hunt for Russian nationals in third countries, have extradited our fellow countryman Alexander Vinnik to reprisals of the American punitive justice," she said.
"Athens’ enthusiastic participation in the illegal act of America’s legal arbitrariness in respect of the Russian national, who was arrested in Greece more than five years ago and then transferred to France, from where he was taken back to Athens only to be extradited, but, as a matter of fact, to be abducted, is another evidence of Greece’s confrontational course against our country," she stressed.
She vowed that "Russia will not leave its national out in the cold and Russian diplomats will do their utmost to defend his legal rights and interests."
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).