Russian detained in the Netherlands at the request of the United States | News from Germany about Europe

Russian citizen Denis Dubnikov was detained in the Netherlands at the request of the United States – he is accused of money laundering in the interests of cybercriminals. Arkady Bukh, the lawyer of the detainee, told the TASS agency on Friday, November 12.

“The charges are related to money laundering in the interests of cybercriminals,” the lawyer said. A Russian in the United States could face up to 20 years in prison. Dubnikov’s defense will insist that “he did not know where the money came from and acted in full compliance with Russian law.”

At the same time, the charges by the United States have not yet been presented in full, the lawyer noted. They have the right not to do this until the moment, until he is brought to the United States, he explained. The US Department of Justice and the FBI have not yet responded to TASS inquiries.

Details of the detention

According to Bukh, in early November Dubnikov was denied entry to Mexico. From there he went to Amsterdam, where he was detained. Since the Netherlands “has almost 100% extradition statistics,” Dubnikov’s defense, although fighting against his extradition to the United States, does not rule out that it will agree with it.

Earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported that the arrest of Dubnikov in Amsterdam took place in early November on the basis of a request from the American Ministry of Justice.

Communication with cybercriminals

Dubnikov is the co-founder of two cryptocurrency trading platforms, EggChange and Crypto Coyote. According to the WSJ, the US authorities are accusing him of laundering money through these platforms in the interests of the Ryuk cybercriminals group, who received a total of $ 400,000 in bitcoins.

Ryuk may be behind a series of ransomware attacks on the American health care system in 2020 and has received millions of dollars from victims of these attacks, the publication quoted the US Department of Justice as requesting.

Office in the Federation Tower

On November 3, the American edition of Bloomberg published a material in which it mentioned EggChange as one of four companies with offices in Moscow and cashing out illegally obtained cryptocurrency.

EggChange’s office is located on the 22nd floor of the Federation Tower, the newspaper noted, mentioning that an investigation is underway against this company in the United States and Europe on suspicion of money laundering.

According to Bloomberg, at least 50 companies were located in the Moscow region of Moscow City, converting cryptocurrencies into cash, part of which was obtained from illegal activities. The publication cited data from the US Treasury Department, according to which hackers located in Russia or Eastern Europe in 2021 have already received $ 590 million through attacks on American schools, businesses, government agencies and healthcare providers. This is 42 percent more than in the entire 2020, the newspaper notes.

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Author: Ilya Koval