Former militant of the DPR Khavchenko buys the WEX cryptocurrency exchange

Former DPR militant Dmitry Khavchenko (call sign sailor) buys the Russian Exchange of WEX cryptocurrencies. It is reported by RBC.

According to the publication, Konstantin Malofeev, one of the financiers of Russian aggression against Ukraine, may be behind the transaction.

WEX is the successor of the BTC-E Exchange, operating in 2011-2017. BTC-E was the largest Russian-speaking platform for the purchase and sale of cryptocurrencies; At the peak, its daily turnover reached 66 million dollars. The exchange ceased to exist after on July 25 last year in Greece, at the request of the US Ministry of Justice, one of its leaders, Russian Alexander Vinnik, was detained. In the United States, he faces up to 55 years in prison on charges of laundering money from 4 to 9 billion dollars. While Vinnik remains in Thessaloniki.

Simultaneously with the arrest of the Greek police, Vinnik FBI visited the BTC-E Data Center in New Jersey and arrested the server, thereby completely paralyzing the work of the exchange.

The new WEX exchange, which has already earned in mid-September, resembles BTC-E with design and functionality. She took on the obligations of the bursting exchange to customers. The WEX operator is the Singapore company World Exchange Services. Its only founder is the 31 -year -old native of Minsk Dmitry Vasiliev, who lived in St. Petersburg, and in 2012 moved to China.

After the collapse of BTC -E, Vasiliev contacted one of the founders of this exchange - a kind of Alexei, who is known to clients under the nickname Support - and suggested restraining the project. The oncoming conditions of Alexei were a solution to problems with the clients of the bursting exchange and assistance in the release of Vinnik.

WEX quickly received part of the previous BTC-E customers. They returned the cryptocurrency, the information about which remained on reserve servers, in the amount equivalent to 500 million dollars. By the end of last year, the WEX daily turnover was $ 80 million; According to Coinmarketcap, it was the 20th in size of the cryptocurrency platform of the world. Now, however, its turnover has decreased to $ 20 million per day.

Fulfilling the second condition of Alexei, Vasiliev contacted Timofeus Musatov, lawyer Vinnik. Musatov attracted a businessman as an expert for speaking at a court hearing about Vinnik's extradition in the United States. Thanks to acquaintance with Musatov, who is the business partner of Natalia Kasperskaya, Vasiliev entered the circle of businessmen, whom RBC calls "conservative Russian IT entrepreneurs who advocate the hard sovereignty of the Russian Internet." As a result, he received the patronage of the structures of Malofeev.

After conducting an investigation, the journalist of RBC introduced himself as a buyer of cryptocurrency. He agreed on the “deal” with another co -founder of BTC -E, a native of Perm Artem Karyanov (Nick ArtemCrpt). Karyanov said that meetings for the conclusion of major transactions are scheduled at the Novinsky Passage shopping and business center on a garden ring in Moscow. On the fifth floor of the "Novinsky passage" is the office of the Tsargrad group of companies belonging to Malofeev.

Subsequently, the journalist revealed his incognito and tried to contact Malofeev. He did not answer calls. Then the author of the investigation wrote to the oligarch in WhatsApp. Soon, someone named Sergey contacted the editors and suggested discussing the situation with Khavchenko.

At the meeting, the former militant of the DPR confirmed that at the end of April he concluded an intent agreement with Vasiliev, which recorded the preliminary consent of the parties to the WEX purchase and sale transaction. Khavchenko refused to clarify the amount of the transaction; The interlocutor of the publication surrounded by Vasiliev spoke of several million dollars. At the same time, the former militant assured that he does not intend to take the money to buy his own and loans for the transaction, and has nothing to do with Tsargrad.

According to Khavchenko, Blockchain technology allows, bypassing sanctions dangers, to transfer funds to any unrecognized states - not only to the "people's republics" in the east of Ukraine, but also in Transnistria, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

WEX, continued the former action movie, will turn into a "powerful and patriotic project." The exchange team will move to the annexed Crimea, and its management company can be re -registered in one of the unrecognized "republics".

Vasiliev himself confirmed the fact of negotiations, noting that since January, he has not actually participated in the WEX management, and his relationship with his partners has come to a dead end. Which partners are in mind, he did not specify.

Khavchenko is 52 years old, he is a native of Crimea. After the collapse of the USSR, he lived in Kyiv. In the 1990s-the first half of the 2000s he worked in the company "Iter", which was engaged in the supply of Russian gas to Ukraine. In 2007, he headed the company "Rosukrstroy"-the daughter of the Russian SU-155. In 2012, a criminal case of fraud was opened against Khavchenko; On the website of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs, he is still listed on this case.

In March 2014, Khavchenko as a “militia” participated in the annexation of Crimea by Russia. Since May of the same year, he fought in eastern Ukraine. Then he met the Prime Minister of the DPR Alexander Boroday, a former consultant of Malofeev. In a conversation with RBC, Khavchenko called Boroday "friend" and "combat comrade."

In the summer of 2014, the militant participated in the transfer to the authorities of Malaysia on-board self-writings shot down by the Russian military Boeing-777. While the beard played at this meeting, Khavchenko, without removing the machine gun, took out black boxes from a bag for sugar.

In August 2014, as a result of a wound, he lost two fingers on his right hand.

Since 2015, Khavchenko has been heading the branch of the Union of Volunteers of Donbass in the annexed Crimea. The whole structure is led by a beard.