For France, he is only a top-flight computer hacker. But Alexander Vinnik is much more than that. At 42, this man alone represents an unprecedented diplomatic, financial and technological challenge.
Claimed by the United States, Russia and France at the same time since his arrest in Greece in 2017, this Russian national was extradited to Paris in January under a European arrest warrant. "Rather than an extradition, it is about a surrender to France, decided by the Greek Minister of Justice in person", criticizes Me Ariane Zimra, Vinnik's lawyer, who considers the procedure illegal.
Since then, despite his client's silence, court decisions have been chained against him. In the wake of the prosecution's requisitions, Vinnik was sent back on July 21 to the Paris Criminal Court for "organized gang extortion", "aggravated money laundering", "criminal association" and "infringement of an automated processing system. data. A first hearing has been set for September 13.
At the end of an investigation opened in France in June 2018, the two judges in charge of the “Locky” case are convinced that it was he who was the driving force behind this so-called “ransomware” system. In short: institutions or companies saw their computer network hacked and their data made inaccessible. They would revert to it if a ransom was paid.
In 2016, Locky killed at least 5,700 people around the world, including nearly 200 in France, more than half in the South West. Large law firms, national networks of real estate agencies had been targeted, as well as municipalities or institutions such as Agence France Presse or the Judicial Youth Protection. The operation would have brought in more than 30 million dollars (25.5 million euros). Amounts collected in bitcoins, the most widely used crypto-currency, of which Vinnik would be one of the world's best specialists.
Born in Kurgan, Russia, not far from the border with Kazakhstan, he is said to have studied there, specializing in monetary transactions, before taking the head of an online platform called BTC-e, or "bitcoin exchange". Particularly popular in the former Eastern bloc countries, the world's third-largest bitcoin trading platform in 2016 with nearly 700,000 customers, BTC-e allowed certain buyers to operate anonymously. It was towards her that Locky's ransoms converged, generally from 1 to 4 bitcoins, each unit being worth around 600 euros at the time, far from the 9,000 euros reached today after a course in yo-yo.
Drug trafficking, geopolitics, intelligence
Above all, BTC-e would have been a formidable washing of dirty money, which would have allowed, according to the United States, the laundering of nearly 9 billion dollars (7.6 billion euros) coming from a jumble of organizations. terrorists or drug trafficking. The name of BTC-e also appears in other files, on the borders of IT, geopolitics and intelligence. The platform would have recycled the funds stolen from one of its rivals, MtGox, run by a Frenchman. Above all, it would have hosted the finances of Fancy Bear, a group of hackers known close to the Russian power, suspected of having interfered in the American presidential campaign of 2016.
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It was at the request of the FBI that Vinnik was arrested in Greece, where he was with his wife and children, in July 2017. His phones were immediately examined. In the process, Russia had invoked a swindle committed by Vinnik on Russian soil, justifying that the latter be repatriated to its territory, which the latter has continuously demanded, without success.
At the time of its closure under pressure from US authorities, BTC-e had nearly $ 1 billion (nearly 850 million euros) in bitcoins. What have they become ? According to British BBC radio, half of this sum was saved by Vinnik's associate, Alexei Bilyuchenko. Also on vacation in Greece, he had escaped arrest. Panicked, he broke his computer, threw the remains into the sea and rushed back to Moscow. There, he would have been relieved of nearly 450 million dollars (382 million euros) by a Russian oligarch, with the complicity of the FSB, the intelligence services.
Alexander Vinnik never wanted to speak
Beyond Locky, the BTC-e file never ceases to branch out, just like Vinnik's legal troubles. While he faces ten years in prison in France, Greece has stipulated that he be returned to him at the end of his sentence. He will then take the path of the United States, on behalf of which Me Zimra considers that France is acting like a false nose in this file "more political than legal." On the other side of the Atlantic, it is this time a minimum of 55 years of detention that the Russian risks.
"The French procedure is based on the American procedure, the elements of which have not been entered in the investigation file", recalls his lawyer, considering that the latter "presents a number of forgeries. “Basically, Alexander Vinnik never wished to speak. “Because only a tiny part of the procedure has been translated into Russian,” pleads his counsel. He does not know what the elements are, at the end of an investigation which, since January, has only lasted three effective months. "
The French judges, them, remain convinced that Vinnik was indeed the owner of one of the administrator accounts of BTC-e baptized “vamnedam” in Russian, that is to say “I will not give it to you. The connections and passwords to access this account would have been identified on his computer.
Charges denied by Alexander Vinnik's lawyer. “My client saw his life change in a few hours,” she describes. What happened to him could happen to anyone. It is his knowledge that is the stake in this affair. "