The trustee of the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox is seeking information about Alexander Vinnik, the alleged operator of BTC-e Exchange , from the US Department of Justice.
Announced at a creditors’ meeting on Tuesday, the rehabilitation trustee Nobuaki Kobayashi has contacted the US authority through a US law firm to gather the necessary information.
Vinnik is alleged to be the operator of the doomed crypto exchange BTC-e, which is believed to have played a major role in laundering the stolen funds from Mt. Gox. He was arrested in 2017 in Greece on request of the US authorities and currently imprisoned in the European country.
The US Department of Justice brought in a $100 million case against Vinnik for operating an unregistered money service business and failed to prevent money laundering.
Meanwhile, a Russian law firm recently approached the Mt. Gox creditors, claiming that it can recover up to an estimated 200,000 stolen tokens. The law firm also mentioned the role of BTC-e and is targeting the recipients of the funds from the exchanges like BTC-e and WEX.
However, in return, Zheleznikov and Partners is demanding 50 to 75 percent of the recovered amount from the creditors along with hourly fees for its services to handle the paperwork. This kept away the creditors of the bankrupt exchange from taking the service of the law firm.
Some discrepancies in numbers
Notably, there is a significant drop in the account balance of the rehabilitation trustee reported in the recent meeting’s report compared to the previous one. As of September 24, 2019, the trustee secured JPY 69,397,600,922, a figure JPY 155,000,000 lower than the balance of JPY 69,553,086,521 reported in March.
The report also detailed that by September 30, the rehabilitation trustee holds 141,686.35446516 BTC and 142,846.35166254 BCH and is trying to recover more digital assets belong to the creditors.
Meanwhile, a federal judge in Philadelphia recently declined to dismiss a proposed class-action suit which accused the exchange's former CEO Mark Karpeles of hiding issues before the collapse of the exchange.
