Re: $4 BEEEELLION ?
The thing is with that $4 beeeeelion its headline grabbing crap. The $4 billion is the incorrectly estimated value of all the bitcoin that has entered BTC-e at half the current days value. So the 1000's of bitcoins that were transferred in 2011 at a value of what $5 each are counted as having a value of ~$1200 each. Also all of that money wasn't being laundered, it was people using the exchange, selling their bitcoins. In the warrant only around $200000 is actually mentioned with specific transfers.
What they are getting him for really is running an unregistered exchange / money transfer company that accepted money from the US. Which if you go into technicalities, they never did, BTC-e didn't accept direct money transfers only money from transfer companies, or the dodgy part a shell company account.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
