The U.S. Department of Justice have charged Russian nationals Alexey Bilyuchenko and Aleksandr Verner with the 2014 Mt. Gox hack.
The duo “gained unauthorized access” to Mt. Gox’s wallets around September 2011, the DOJ said in a press release.
The two stole and laundered 647,000 BTC over the course of nearly three years.
The DOJ alleged that Bilyuchenko was also an operator of defunct crypto exchange BTC-e, alongside Alexander Vinnick who was previously charged with operating BTC-e.
Both face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, while Bilyuchenko also faces a charge of operating an unlicensed money services business.
Mt. Gox halted transactions in February 2014, shortly after Messari founder Ryan Selkis published an internal document suggesting it had lost nearly 750,000 BTC.
The DOJ also alleged that Bilyuchenko, Verner and other unnamed co-conspirators used an unnamed New York-based bitcoin brokerage service to launder funds, ultimately moving over $6.6 million into “overseas bank accounts.”
