Russian cryptocurrency trader arrested in the US for circumventing sanctions and laundering $530 million

A Russian businessman who purchased American technology has been arrested in the United States. The US Department of Justice has accused cryptocurrency entrepreneur Yuri Gugnina of laundering over $500 million and helping Russia obtain sensitive American technology.

“The founder of Florida-based payment company Evita Pay and a Delaware company called Evita Investments has been charged with bank fraud, money laundering, and other crimes. According to the Department of Justice, he was arrested in New York,” the publication said.

The prosecutor's office claims that Gugnin made payments on behalf of foreign clients for US electronics subject to export controls and for spare parts for the Russian state-owned nuclear technology company Rosatom.

According to the investigation, Gugnin arrived in the US in 2022 and organized a money laundering operation under the guise of launching a cryptocurrency. He then used this cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and export controls and defraud US financial institutions. He “turned a cryptocurrency company into a hidden ‘pipeline’ for dirty money,” prosecutors say.

Gugnin laundered his clients' cryptocurrency through cryptocurrency wallets and US bank accounts, converting the funds into US dollars or other currencies. Prosecutors allege that he facilitated nearly $2 billion in transactions and that many of his clients were in Russia and held funds in Russian banks under sanctions. Other clients were in China and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the investigation, the businessman facilitated payments to Iwu Vortex Import and Export Co Limited, a Hong Kong distributor that the US sanctioned last year for illegally exporting marine equipment to Russia.

Court documents describe a deal in which the South Korean group agreed to provide Moscow with parts and equipment, which it then supplied to the Russian state-owned company Rosatom.

Gugnin is also accused of helping a Russian client purchase a server manufactured by a US technology company and illegally exporting the technology to Russia without a license.

Prosecutors said Gugnin had ties to government officials in Russia and Iran who could help him escape prosecution, including members of the Russian special services. The maximum sentence the suspect could receive is 30 years in prison.

Earlier, it was reported that a New York court sentenced the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency platform Celsius Network LLC, Ukrainian-born Alex Mashinsky, to 12 years in prison.

He was found guilty of commodities and securities fraud. Celsius went bankrupt in July 2022, and Celsius customers lost access to $4.7 billion in assets. The founder himself managed to withdraw $8 million.

Earlier, the US Department of Justice accused two top managers of the American company Eleview International Inc. of exporting sanctioned technology to Russia worth $6.4 million.

It is noted that Oleg Nayandin and Vitaly Borisenko conspired and developed three schemes to circumvent export restrictions imposed on Russia by shipping American goods and technologies through Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Finland.

Source: Kyiv 24, Financial Times