Dmitry Vasiliev, former CEO of Wex, has been detained at Franjo Tudjman Airport in the Croatian capital today.
Wex was once the largest crypto trading platform in Belarus.
The Jutarnji List reports that the authorities in Zagreb acted on a red warrant issued by Interpol on a request from Kazakhstan.
Vasiliev is wanted in the Central Asian country for allegedly defrauding an investor of $20,000.
Kazakhstan’s law enforcement has been seeking Vasiliev’s extradition for some time, but the crime he is accused of there is relatively minor compared to other suspected offenses.
Wex went bankrupt in 2018 and according to estimates by a group of users, the total losses exceed $400 million.
September last year, the Polish press revealed that Vasiliev had been arrested at the Warsaw airport in mid-August and was awaiting extradition to Kazakhstan.
In December, it was reported he had returned to Russia following his release.
Two years, Vasiliev was apprehended in Italy some two years ago, but Italian authorities let him go after several weeks, citing faults in the extradition request.
Vasiliev lives in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
In 2017, Wex was established as successor of the infamous BTC-e exchange which had closed down earlier that year after the arrest in Greece of one of its alleged operators, Alexander Vinnik.
The U.S. accuses Vinnik of laundering up to $9 billion through the trading platform. Vinnik was extradited to France, where he was sentenced to five years in prison in December 2020, and is also wanted by Russia.
