The sad thing about this whole scenario is that the US will steal all the money if they get ahold of the servers. The outrage if they did this with a traditional securities firm would be incredible, but the can just label a bitcoin exchange as money launderers and steal from the clients. Most people are too stupid to do any research on what the firm actually did. BTC-e has been by far the most reliable exchange in Bitcoins history. I have used it extensively. Even with unknown owners it had heavy traffic and was well ran. I have had absolutely no problems using it. Now compare that to Coinbase where I get random audits from them about my bitcoin purchases. Or how about MT Gox which had a host of issues, Poloniex which has been hacked several times, Bitstamp, Bifinex and Bter have all been hacked. Other exchanges have just shut down and exit scammed. BTC-e has always been very trustworthy.
The US just doesn't like the secretive nature of the exchange. But if they were traditional money launderers they would actually charge decent fees. BTC-e charges .2% hardly the money you would expect from a large money laundering operation.