MOSCOW, June 29. /TASS/. Poland has extradited to the United States Dmitry Vasilyev, the former head of the Wex cryptocurrency exchange, as part of the case against another Russian citizen, Alexander Vinnik, his lawyer Alexander Surzhin told TASS.

"My defendant, Russian citizen Dmitry Vasilyev, was extradited by the Polish authorities to the United States as part of an earlier US criminal investigation against Alexander Vinnik. The extradition request was granted by Poland’s minister of justice. My defendant is now in custody with the US authorities," the lawyer said.

Charges against him include fraud and money laundering. According to the lawyer, Vasilyev is facing up to 25 years in prison if found guilty.

Vasilyev has already been detained in Poland, but was deported to Kazakhstan. Later, the Russian citizen was detained in Italy, but released due to errors in the official extradition request. These detentions followed the disappearance of almost $500 million from Wex accounts, including funds deposited by European investors.

Alexander Vinnik, who was detained in Greece in 2017 at the request of the United States, returned to Russia under an agreement between the two nations. In the US, the Russian was accused of laundering between $4 billion and 9 billion through the now defunct crypto exchange BTC-e. He was extradited to the United States in August 2022.