A cryptocurrency expert languishing in a Greek jail may have a vantage point on a tantalizing issue -- how Russians in U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s crosshairs used Bitcoin to obscure their money trail.
The expert, Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, was detained last year after U.S. prosecutors in San Francisco accused him of supervising a digital-currency exchange that helped criminals launder billions of dollars. That exchange, according to cryptocurrency analysis firm Elliptic, handled some Bitcoins traced to Fancy Bear, a hacking unit. Fancy Bear is one of the names for the Russian military intelligence officers who Mueller separately accuses of stealing and releasing Democrats’ emails to sway votes in the 2016 elections.
