Russian citizen forgotten in Polish prison
In the Polish capital, Warsaw, 37-year-old Russian citizen Dmitry Vasiliev has been held in Bialolenka prison for more than six months. Employees of the Polish Interpol Bureau detained Vasilyev on October 17, 2024, at the Warsaw airport immediately after passing through passport control. Shortly after Vasiliev's arrest, it became known that a Russian citizen ended up in a Polish prison cell under a warrant issued in the United States on July 12, 2022, as part of a criminal case against another Russian, Alexander Vinnik.
In the United States, Vinnik was considered one of the leaders of a criminal organization that laundered from 4 to 9 billion dollars of criminal origin through the BTC-e crypto exchange from 2011 to 2017.
Dmitry Vasiliev was one of the clients of the BTC-e exchange, and a very large one at that. He worked as a broker in the interests of businessmen from China, selling or buying cryptocurrency in the amount of 500 thousand to 2 million dollars a day. He worked steadily and successfully for several years, but on July 25, 2017, Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece at the request of the United States, and in the United States itself, FBI agents seized the BTC-e servers, and blocked the exchange's domain.
Vinnik's partner Alexey Bilyuchenko managed to escape and return to Russia, and in August 2017, Bilyuchenko decided to launch a new crypto exchange, WEX. Dmitry Vasiliev, who registered the World Exchange Service s company and the WEX domain name in Singapore in his own name, helped him with the implementation of this projects, and work began to boil over.
Vasiliev became the official face of the new crypto exchange. Bilyuchenko, as in BTC-e, remained in the shadows at the WEX crypto exchange, providing all the technical part and closing access to crypto wallets, among other things. WEX rapidly gained popularity among users, primarily because it announced itself as the successor to BTC-e and pledged to compensate for losses to customers of the collapsed exchange.
Meanwhile, launching a new crypto exchange, Bilyuchenko decided to take care of the "roof". And already in August 2017, I found a patron. It is supposed to be Konstantin Malofeev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the «Tsargrad» Group of Companies and one of the founders of the Safe Internet League.
What happened next is well known. The WEX exchange collapsed. Bilyuchenko, who changed his last name to Ivanov, was arrested. They were arrested in Russia.
On September 20, 2023, the Meshchansky Court of Moscow sentenced him for embezzling 3 billion rubles of client money to 3.5 years in a general regime penal colony and a fine of 500 thousand rubles in a criminal case initiated in Russia after the collapse of the WEX crypto exchange.
Bilyuchenko, aka Ivanov, has long been at large.
Details of this story can be viewed in the program "WEX will not be seen" and read in the investigation of "Novaya Gazeta". Links under this video. Let me just remind you that during the trial, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow announced the protocol of Bilyuchenko's interrogation for August 25, 2022. From it became known that Konstantin Malofeev allegedly promised general patronage, because he has financial capabilities and extensive connections in law enforcement agencies, including the GRU and FSB. The businessman allegedly undertook to help Bilyuchenko in solving any issues that arise and provide patronage in protecting the business from the claims of third parties.
On August 29, 2023, a week before the start of the trial of Alexey Bilyuchenko-Ivanov, I met Dmitry Vasiliev in the cafe of the «Mercury» hotel near Novy Arbat. He said that even before the launchWof the WEX exchange in August 2017, together with Alexey Bilyuchenko, they allegedly held talks with Konstantin Malofeev. The meeting allegedly took place in the Tsargrad office on Novinsky Boulevard, where, according to Vasiliev, they agreed to work together, distributing profits equally, 1/3 each.
Then, again, according to Vasiliev, there were allegedly two more meetings between Bilyuchenko and Vasiliev with Malofeev. The second one took place in Dubai in October 2017, and the third one was back in the «Tsargrad» office.
Vasiliev told me that Malofeev said that " ... the crypt rules, we will tear everyone up, move everyone." Konstantin Valeryevich brought his team, with whom we held planning meetings every week. And at first, everything went well – the exchange earned up to $ 10 million a month as a percentage of transactions. And somewhere in December 2017, I was pushed away from the exchange. Dmitry Khavchenko came to me and said that I should sell him the Singapore company World Exchange Services.
The offer looked like an ultimatum. Vasiliev could not refuse the deal, although he held out with the registration of the sale until the fall of 2018. But since the beginning of 2018, Vasiliev had nothing to do with the WEX exchange, which continued to work quite successfully for more than six months. And the collapse of the WEX exchange occurred without the participation of Dmitry Vasiliev, but he still feared arrest in Russia.
And during the trial of Bilyuchenko-Ivanov, he recorded a video message, which he handed over to me and asked me to post it to the public in case of his arrest.
Video message from Dmitry Vasiliev:
Friends, if you are watching this video, then something is wrong with me. I write it down before the court. On September 20, at 12 o'clock, the court will be at Bilyuchenko. It is clear that everyone is trying to shift the blame. The admin is being milked. Malafeev is not to blame for anything. But let me remind you, he was the main and only partner. All the transfers, all the accidental deaths... well, Abramov ... the strange swing with Musatov, it's all connected with Kostya. Because he was a partner, he skillfully put his hand on it all, he gave his employees.
Well, frankly, he just s* * al users ' money. "Mining," the whole thing... well, he's kind of innocent. The TV channel works, everything works, partners earn money. Not bad, yeah. Five million or a billion bucks s * * ali.
Yes, the security forces also milked everyone who was not too lazy. And the admin who created the business is sitting there. And they're trying to do something to me. We have such a legalstate that people who have more than 100 million s*** feel at ease. The bribe was given – the cops are just in business. The admin skillfully read it out, just take a look… The admin testified, where everyone told who milked him and how. But the funny thing is that the admin is sitting, and not those werewolves in uniform who bred him, threw him. Not Malofeev, who also has nothing to do with it, who is already simply branded with nowhere to leave. Not to mention all those raider attacks… It will be different adventures...
Therefore, we live in a state of law, and good luck to you. I hope that you will be alive and well and everything will be fine. Let me remind you that I came to court myself, and I'm not hiding from anyone. Always ready to cooperate with the investigation, did not take anything. And I am ready to defend my position, openly and directly. Well, wait for new videos, there will be a lot of interesting things.
I repeat, Dmitry Vasilyev was arrested not in Russia, but in Poland. And they were arrested on an extradition request received from the United States. This is despite the fact that Vasiliev has already testified several times in the Vinnik case on the territory of US embassies in different countries. What is Dmitry Vasiliev accused of today?
Here is an official document of the Warsaw District Court dated March 14, 2025, which extended Vasilyev's arrest until September 12, 2025. Literally:
"From 2011 to 2018, in the US state of California, together with other individuals, he participated in the management of the BTC-e and WEX cryptocurrency exchanges. Conducted activities aimed at concealing the origin of funds, laundering the proceeds from criminal activities."
But here's what's interesting. This court decision was issued on March 14, 2025. And exactly one month before that, Alexander Vinnik returned to Russia. And he returned after the criminal case against him in the United States was closed.
Video of Alexander Vinnik after his release:
Thank you all. To the President, Vladimir Vladimirovich. Thank you to everyone who helped. Thank you very much.
So what does this mean? Vinnik's case in the United States is closed, and the witness in this criminal case, Dmitry Vasiliev, as he was in a Warsaw prison, continues to sit.
During the nearly 7 months that a Russian citizen has been languishing in a prison in Warsaw, the staff of the Russian consulate in Poland has never bothered to visit the Russian in prison, at least to ask if he has any problems, if the Polish guards do not offend him.
But let's return to the document of the District Court in Warsaw dated March 14, 2025. It has a very interesting line. It turns out that on January 21, 2025, a court in Warsaw recognized the permissible extradition of Dmitry Vasilyev to Ukraine. But on a separate request.
It turns out that after the closure of the Vinnik case in America, Dmitry Vasiliev is no longer needed. Nor do the Poles need it. But in Warsaw, they don't know what to do with a Russian citizen who has been forgotten by everyone. So, apparently, they came up with a scheme to transfer it to Ukraine. What for? For what? So that Ukraine quickly fabricated a criminal case against Vasilyev and exchanged it for someone?
We continue to follow the fate of a Russian citizen who was forgotten in a prison in Warsaw.
