On Wednesday, July 27, 2017, the U.S. Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced a $110 million fine levied against BTC-e, a digital currency exchange, for BTC-e’s alleged refusal to abide by anti-money laundering (AML) laws and reporting requirements. 1 BTC-e’s owner, Russian national Alexander Vinnik, was fined $12 million and arrested in Greece this week for his role in the alleged violations.
BTC-e serves as a virtual currency exchange for Bitcoin, Litecoin, Namecoin, Novacoin, Peercoin, Ethereum and Dash, as well as traditional currencies like the U.S. dollar, the Russian ruble and the euro. The company is headquartered in Russia. Customers have used the service to conduct Bitcoin transactions worth collectively nearly $300 million. BTC-e is currently offline, and a message from company’s Twitter account indicates that the site will be down for five to 10 days.