On Monday, a Russian citizen was arrested in New York for laundering more than half a billion dollars through US banks and cryptocurrencies. Let’s take a closer look at this case.
Arrested for laundering half a billion dollars through banks and cryptocurrencies
On Monday, the US Department of Justice accused a Russian citizen living in New York of laundering $530 million through cryptocurrencies and the US banking system.
The 38-year-old, who also goes by the names Iurii Mashukov and George Goognin, used his companies Evita Investments and Evita Pay to facilitate the laundering for foreign clients.
According to the statement, the clients in question sent him funds from sanctioned Russian banks on the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) list. These funds were moved through a combination of transactions between US bank accounts and conversion into cryptocurrencies, mainly USDT stablecoins.
The events took place between June 2023 and January 2025, and the sanctioned banks included Sberbank, Sovcombank, VTB Bank, and Tinkoff Bank.
Joseph Nocella Jr., US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, commented on the case:
As alleged, Gugnin came to the United States and set up a money laundering operation under the guise of a cryptocurrency startup, which he then used to evade sanctions and export controls and defraud US financial institutions.
In total, Iurii Gugnin is facing 22 charges, including:
- Bank and wire fraud;
- Conspiracy to defraud the United States;
- Violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act;
- Operating an unlicensed money transfer business;
- Failure to implement an effective anti-money laundering program;
- Failure to report suspicious activity;
- Money laundering and related conspiracy.
For each of these charges, he faces up to a maximum of 10 to 30 years in prison, suggesting that he will spend many years behind bars.
While some might easily jump to the wrong conclusion and see this as evidence of the use of cryptocurrencies, it should be emphasized that this is, on the contrary, further proof that they are ineffective for criminal activities. In fact, this observation seems to be tacitly acknowledged by Roman Rozhavsky, the deputy director of the FBI’s counterintelligence division:
It is important to note that using cryptocurrencies to conceal illegal activities will not prevent the FBI and its partners from holding you accountable.
In the meantime, the suspect is still awaiting trial and was arrested on Monday in New York.
