Greek Supreme Court Approves Extradition of Alleged Bitcoin Exchange Owner to Russia

The Supreme Court in Greece has ruled on Friday that the alleged owner of the now defunct Bitcoin exchange BTC-e Alexander Vinnik can be extradited to Russia, instead of the US or France, countries which also requested the his extradition. According to Greek Reporter, Vinnik's extradition to Russia, however, is now in the hands of the Greek Justice Minister who can decline to sign, although state officials rarely overrule justice systems on such decisions. Vinnik was arrested in July 2017 in Greece after U.S. prosecutors accused him of supervising BTC-e which allegedly helped criminals launder over $9 billion. On the same day Greek authorities were arresting Vinnik, a team of researchers presented findings at the Black Hat USA 2017 security conference, revealing that 95 percent of all ransomware payments were cashed out and converted into fiat currency through BTC-e exchange. Also on the same day, a group of Bitcoin security specialists calling themselves WizSec published the results