Former owner of the cryptocurrency exchange WEX Dmitry Vasiliev, who was wanted by Interpol, was detained at the capital’s airport in Croatia.
According to local media, the detention took place on May 25 on the basis of a red Interpol card issued by Kazakhstan. There a few years ago against Vasiliev opened a criminal case of fraud. The former head of the cryptocurrency exchange is suspected of embezzling more than $ 20,000 and is demanding his extradition.
Dmitry Vasiliev is a native of Belarus. He became interested in cryptocurrencies in 2010, serving large clients from China who traded on the largest Russian-language cryptocurrency exchange BTC-e.
In the summer of 2017, BTC-e closed, and in the fall it was restarted under the new name Wex, where Vasiliev became its director. As of the end of 2017, Wex was one of the twenty largest cryptocurrencies in the world, with a daily turnover of $ 80 million.
In July 2018, the Wex cryptocurrency exchange ceased to operate due to “technical work”. At the same time, an agreement was signed on the transfer of ownership of WEX to the ex-militant of the so-called “DPR” Dmitry “Moryachka” Khavchenko.
In August of that year, the exchange declared bankruptcy. It is estimated that the losses exceeded $ 400 million, about half of which are attributed to Vasiliev himself. In addition, the law enforcement agencies of Kazakhstan received a statement from the former head of the cryptocurrency exchange. An Almaty stock exchange client accused Vasiliev of stealing $ 20,000 from Wex with the help of Wex.
In the spring of 2019 in Kazakhstan he was recognized in absentia as a suspect in fraud and declared wanted interstate.
At the request of Kazakhstan, Vasiliev was first arrested in 2019 in Italy, but then he managed to return to Russia.
The ex-owner of Wex was detained for the second time in August 2021 at the Warsaw airport, after which the court arrested him for 40 days. The Polish prosecutor’s office considered the issue of Vasiliev’s extradition to Kazakhstan, but even then he was released. At that time, Vasiliev’s lawyer clarified that the court had not yet made a final decision on his transfer to the police of Kazakhstan.
So the former head of the cryptocurrency exchange returned to Russia. And soon through the Binance exchange, an unknown person withdrew 100 ETH from one of the WEX wallets.