U.S. Department of Justice: Mt. Gox hackers are two Russian citizens, operated exchange to launder money, facing up to 20 years in prison

The Southern District of New York's prosecutors in the United States exposed the lawsuit of Mt. Gox hackers. Two Russian citizens, Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner, along with their accomplices, unauthorizedly gained access to the servers of Mt. Gox, the world's largest Bitcoin exchange platform at the time, from 2011 to 2014.

Mount Gox Hackers from Russia

They used access privileges to transfer Mt. Gox's bitcoins to bitcoin addresses controlled by them and stole at least around 647,000 bitcoins, which mainly belonged to Mt. Gox customers.

They laundered most of the bitcoins stolen from Mt. Gox through accounts on two other online bitcoin exchanges and a specific user account on Mt. Gox. Additionally, they signed a fake advertising contract with New York Bitcoin Broker, a bitcoin brokerage service in the southern district of New York, under the guise of advertising services, to hide and monetize the stolen bitcoins. The brokerage service conducted a large number of wire transfers to various overseas bank accounts controlled by them, including accounts of shell companies set up in their names. This allowed them to hide and monetize the stolen bitcoins. The brokerage service transferred over approximately $6.6 million to overseas bank accounts and laundered over 300,000 of the stolen bitcoins through bitcoin exchanges.

Mt. Gox Hackers Operating BTC-e for Money Laundering

The U.S. Southern District of New York's prosecutor's office stated that individuals including Alexey Bilyuchenko and Alexander Vinnik operated the BTC-e trading platform from 2011 to 2017 until the platform was shut down by law enforcement in 2017. BTC-e served over a million users worldwide, processed deposits and withdrawals of hundreds of millions of bitcoins, and handled transactions worth billions of dollars. BTC-e obtained criminal proceeds from multiple computer intrusions and hacking incidents, ransomware events, identity theft schemes, corrupt public officials, and wholesale drug distribution.

Mount Gox Hackers Face Up to 20 Years in Prison

The prosecutor's office charged Bilyuchenko and Verner, both 43-year-old and 29-year-old Russian citizens, with money laundering conspiracy. If convicted, each defendant could face up to 20 years in prison.

Additionally, Northern California has also charged Bilyuchenko with conspiracy to launder money and operate an unlicensed money service business. If convicted in Northern California, Bilyuchenko could face up to 25 years in prison.