He founded a promising platform and ended up accused of washing 500 million

The case of Sam Bankman-Fried He left an open wound in the crypto sector. His meteoric ascent in front of FTX and its subsequent fall They marked a milestone in public perception on these platforms. But it was not the only one. Now, another tycoon of cryptocurrencies has been accused of starring in a massive laundering scheme. Iurii gangnin, founder of the companies Evita Investments and Avoid paywould have provided about 2,000 million dollars in transactions, of which more than 500 million passed through the US financial system. The authorities believe that he turned his company into an undercover financing network for sanctioned Russian banks and sensitive technological exports.

A platform in the sights. According to the accusationGugnin founded two companies in the United States: Evita Investments, based in Delaware, and avoids Pay, based in Florida. Through them it would have moved approximately 530 million dollars through banks and cryptocurrency exchange houses in the US, hiding the real origin and purpose of the funds. Being Evita Investments the main road, with about 365 million of the 530 moved in US territory through Tether.

The Department of Justice accuses him of a total of 22 crimes, including:

• Bank fraud (maximum penalty: 30 years in prison)
• Conspiracy to defraud the United States (up to 5 years)
• Money laundering (up to 20 years)
• Violations of the Law on Economic Powers in International Emergencies (IEEPA) (up to 20 years)
• Operation of a money transmitter company without license (up to 5 years)
• Do not apply an effective program against money laundering (up to 10 years)
• Do not present suspicious activities reports before the authorities (up to 10 years)

Gugnin was arrested in New York. If it is convicted, it could face several decades in prison, according to the combination of charges.

Payments on the name of Russian, Chinese and Emirati customers. The accusation details that many of their clients had accounts in sanctioned Russian banks, such as Sberbank, VTB, Tinkoff, Sovcombank and even Alfa-Bank, where Guggnin himself maintained personal accounts. There were also clients in China and United Arab Emirates. Gugnin received cryptocurrencies, mainly in the stablecoin tether (USDT), turned them into dollars or other fiduciary currencies, and then made payments on behalf of its customers.

How Financial Times points outsome of these payments would have served to acquire technology subject to export control, as servers designed by US companies, pieces for a French yacht company and components for Rosatom, the Russian state corporation of nuclear energy. He would also have channeled payments to Yiwu Vortex, a company sanctioned for exporting maritime equipment to Russia.

A facade of legality. According to the Department of Justice, Guggnin registered Evita Pay as a company transmitting money before the state of Florida and the Finnn Network, but made it falsify the information about the true nature of its business. That license, obtained fraudulently, served to induce cryptocurrency exchange platforms to process operations.

In addition, he cheated banks and exchanges ensuring that he did not work with sanctioned entities or Russian clients. The accusation states that it never applied an effective capital laundering prevention program, did not activate internal controls, did not report suspicious activities.

The “serial entrepreneur” that he was looking for in Google how to know if they investigated him. Gugnin resided in New York and presented himself publicly as a “serial entrepreneur.” According to judicial documentation, he was fully aware of the illegality of his actions.

The authorities had access to their navigation history, finding consultations related to how to know if it was being investigated, the penalties for money laundering, related sanctions and how to act in case of being under police investigation.

Images | Avoid | Drawkit Illustrations | DOJ

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