Israel will extradite Alexander Blok to the United States

The Israeli Supreme Court rejected Alexander Blok’s (Gurevich) appeal against the decision to extradite him to the United States, where he is accused of one of the largest cryptocurrency frauds in history.

Blok, an Israeli and Russian citizen, was detained last May at Ben Gurion Airport while attempting to fly to Russia. It turned out that he entered the country under the name Alexander Horvitz, changed his name to Alexander Blok, received a new Israeli passport in this name and was about to leave the country. The day after the arrest, the state prosecutor’s office initiated extradition proceedings at the request of the American side. About two months later, the Jerusalem District Court declared him “subject to extradition” to the United States.

According to the American prosecution, about three and a half years ago, Block discovered a vulnerability in the system of the American company Nomad, designed for converting cryptocurrencies, and used it to steal $2.89 million. Following him, other hackers penetrated the system through the same vulnerability and completely emptied the company’s wallet. Total damage was approximately $186 million.

Block’s defense argued that the actions Block was charged with did not constitute a crime under Israeli computer crime law, that the American charge of “transfer of stolen property” has no equivalent in Israeli law, and that the theft of tokens from the Nomad system was not proven to the level required in extradition proceedings.

In addition, Block argued that moving tokens between blockchain networks is not money laundering.

Supreme Justices Ofer Grosskopf, Khaled Kaboub and Yechiel Kasher ruled that the concept of “unauthorized access to computer data” should be interpreted broadly to include exploitation of programming errors or security vulnerabilities, not just bypassing a password or authorization mechanism. The court also agreed with the State’s position that the US charge of “transfer of stolen property” met the Israeli charge of money laundering given the nature of the acts alleged against Block.

The execution of the extradition decision now requires the approval of Justice Minister Yariv Levin.

Block’s lawyer, Sharon Nahari, said he intends to seek a retrial.