Former CEO Of WEX Crypto Exchange Gets Arrested In Italy

Former CEO of WEX crypto exchange that is now defunct, was successfully arrested in Italy after he reopened the BTC-e exchange in 2017 as we reported in the altcoin news previously.

Dmitry Vasilyev, who reopened the BTC-exchange and changed the name to WEX.nz in September 2017, was arrested and detained by Italian prosecutors. There was no official statement provided to date but BBC Russia reported on the arrest on July 19. According to the report, the publication cited a friend of Vasilev but also two other anonymous WEX investors. The reason for the detention is still unclear.

Back in April 2019, Vasilyev became the prime suspect of a criminal investigation by the police department in Kazakh City Almaty as he was charged with defrauding a local investor in the amount of $20,000 through his WEX exchange as the reports from the crypto media outlet Forklog reported. According to the report, the 32-year-old suspect was announced wanted under an international arrest warrant in the territory of the Commonwealth of the Independent States. The now-defunct WEX exchange still remains a subject to a $4 billion fraud investigation which is led by Greece and the United States. The Greek police previously stated that they had detained the alleged founder of the exchange Alexander Vinnik.

The Former CEO of WEX crypto exchange comes after the Vinnik’s arrest in 2017 when Vailyev relaunched the exchange under the WEX name that was soon reported as having suspicious tendencies including overpricing Bitcoin compared to the general norms. WEX halted all withdrawals in July 2018 which led to the claims from users that the platform was a scam. WEX’s fellow exchange and one of the largest crypto exchange out there-Binance froze funds that were sent from wallets associated with WEX users after the suspicions about the exchange being involved in money laundering emerged.

As noted in the latest cryptocurrency news, the Russian authorities still fight to get Vinnik home and even the Russian Commissioner for Human Rights asked the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to help get the exchange founder home. There is still no update on this news and there is almost no information available about Vinniks health and mental condition.