A request by Wex clients to block funds taken from an account controlled by the no longer-operational crypto exchange, the Russian Ministry of Interior was denied. The wallet has been accessed by more than 10,000 ETH and these funds have been transferred to different platforms.
Victims of wex try to freeze $46,000,000 worth cryptocurrency that was lost to the bankrupt Russian Exchange
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the Investigation Department (MVD), it has declined to respond to victims of Wex’s request to seize digital assets. The money was withdrawn in September from one of Wex’s wallets. Sergey Mendeleev, CEO of Indefibank, shared the details via social media. He also quoted an official document.
Forklog reported that former Wex users gave the MVD a detailed plan of how the funds were transferred to various crypto platforms. The former Wex users also supplied data from an analytical tool in order to show that the coins had been stolen. Authorities were informed they reached Binance to send a small portion of the funds, 97.8 ETH. They were held hostage by the cryptocurrency exchange for seven working days.
Current procedures at Binance allow the company’s security department to temporarily freeze funds after receiving convincing evidence of a theft. Next, the person who requested the measures must call the appropriate law enforcement agencies and submit a police report back to the cryptocurrency trading platform. Binance will cooperate with investigators and help to settle the matter.
Wex clients requested that the Russian Interior Ministry seize the funds. According to an Oct. 25 official response, the department stated that the victims’ circumstances need more investigation before any authorities could take action. The MVD feels that a confiscation decision would have to be made during the initial investigation, based on all available information.
Crypto exchange Wex is the successor of the infamous BTC-e, once Russia’s largest crypto trading platform, which went offline four years ago. In September this year, reports came out that Wex’s former chief executive, Dmitry Vasiliev, has been arrested in Warsaw. Polish authorities confirmed their arrests and announced that they would be looking into a Kazakhstan extradition request. He is being accused of fraud.
Wex, which was founded in fall 2017, reportedly had a daily turnover exceeding $80 million. However, withdrawals were suddenly stopped in summer 2018 by Wex. The company eventually declared bankruptcy. Forklog estimates that there have been losses of $400 million. Vasiliev, according to a number of users, is believed to have misappropriated $200 million.
According to crypto news outlets, 100 ETH was withdrawn from a Wex account in September. That’s the first movement of these funds in the past three years, the publication noted. The wallet’s remaining balance, $916 ETH valued at $30,000,000, was transferred to a different address just a few days later.
Do you think Wex clients will convince Russian authorities to take action to freeze and seize the funds withdrawn from the exchange’s wallet? Leave your comments below.
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