Trump prisoner swap’s impact on crypto suit

Aliaksandr Klimenka, a Belarusian national charged with helping run a crypto money laundering entity called BTC-e, was set to go to trial in San Francisco federal court this year. He was armed with his co-founder Alexander Vinnik’s testimony, which Klimenka said would exonerate him.

But Vinnik, who pled guilty last year to similar money laundering charges, was traded to his home country of Russia in February in one of President Donald Trump’s first diplomatic prisoner swaps this term. Whatever testimony Vinnik could have provided about BTC-e, which prosecutors allege was a primary cryptocurrency exchange that allowed cyber-criminals to launder hundreds ...