American prosecutors have charged the Iurii Gugnin cryptocurrency entrepreneur to have turned more than $ 500 million and help Russian entities are able to circumvent export controls.
Gugnin, a 38 -year -old Russian national living in New York, founded American companies Evita Investments and Evita Pay. He was Arrested in New York June 9 and faces several accusations, including wire fraud, banking fraud, money laundering and plot.
According to court documents, Gugnin used his cryptography payment companies to receive the cryptocurrency of foreign customers, many of which held accounts in sanctioned Russian banks. He then converted funds into US dollars through American bank accounts and facilitated payments for electronics and other goods, hiding the origin of money and the identity of the people involved.
“Gugnin’s cryptocurrency would have been used to bleach hundreds of millions of dollars for Russian entities sanctioned and to obtain an export technology for the Russian government,” said Deputy Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI counter-espionage division.
Between June 2023 and January 2025, Gugnin used Evita to facilitate the movement of around 530 million dollars via the American financial system, most of which received in the form of a stablecoin of cryptocurrency known as Tether, according to the report of the United States justice.
Prosecutors allege that Gugnin bleached money used to buy parts for RosatomRussian state nuclear company and has helped users of Russian ends to acquire an American -controlled American technology. Deputy Prosecutor General John A. Eisenberg said Gugnin had transformed a crypto startup into “a secret pipeline for dirty money”.
The Ministry of Justice accused Gugnin of deceiving banks and crypto exchanges, wrongly affirming that Evita did not deal with Russian or Sanctioned entities. He would also have tracked down invoices to obscure Russian customers and will not respect the anti-whithening rules, including the negligence of submitting required suspicious activity reports.
If he is convicted, Gugnin risks a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for each bank chief and a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison for each of the metal fraud.
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