Russian national Alexander Vinnik, accused of laundering at least $4 billion through the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange, may admit guilt if there is strong evidence against him, according to his lawyer, Arkady Bukh.

"If it turns out from the materials that everything is really bad and the chances of winning are low, then we will talk about admitting guilt. If we feel based on the evidence that it is weak, we will go to a jury trial," he explained. The lawyer will request a postponement of the hearings scheduled for February because he will not have time to study the "hundreds of thousands of pages" of case materials. According to Bukh, not all necessary data have been provided to the defense.

Alexander Vinnik was detained in Greece in the summer of 2017. In 2020, he was extradited to France, where he was later sentenced to five years in prison and fined €100,000 for money laundering. Charges of extortion and creating the Locky malware were dropped.

Recall that in August 2022, Vinnik was extradited to the United States, where he faces a potential 55-year prison sentence. The court refused to release him on bail.