BTC-E was once the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, and its controller was Aliaksandr Klimenka, a dual national of Belarus and Cyprus. In 2017, U.S. law enforcement agencies and Europol jointly seized BTC-E and pursued Klimenka. Klimenka was eventually arrested in Greece, and then extradited to France. He then went through a series of complicated extraditions, and was finally extradited to the United States at the end of last year and appeared in court in San Francisco.
Klimenka has been accused of many crimes, the biggest of which is his involvement in the Mt. Gox hack, followed by his suspicion of money laundering for various criminal groups, because BTC-E does not require any certification.
Mt.Gox was once one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges. Later, it was hacked and hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins were stolen. Investigation agencies believe that Klimenka was the initiator behind the theft of Mt.Gox.
However, what makes the U.S. Department of Justice even more unhappy is that BTC-E helps a large number of criminal gangs launder money. Investigations show that BTC-E has participated in money laundering of at least US$4 billion. Many encryption ransomware gangs use BTC-E to sell illegally obtained BTC.
Therefore, in fact, the U.S. Department of Justice does not seem to be particularly concerned about the theft of Mt. Gox. Therefore, Klimenka is mainly charged with conspiracy to launder money and operating an unlicensed currency services business. The latter is because BTC-E also has a large number of U.S. customers, but BTC-E has not declared, registered, or obtained an operating license with U.S. regulatory agencies.
According to current estimates, the court may sentence Klimenka to up to 25 years in prison, but the final verdict still needs to be announced by the court.