- A 38-year-old Russian is currently facing 22 charges due to the active role he played in carrying out wire fraud and money laundering.
- According to the DOJ, each of these charges carries up to 10-20 years imprisonment per crime.
Lurii Gungnin, a 38-year-old Russian, is currently facing 22 charges over wire fraud, bank fraud, and money laundering.
According to the details shared by the DOJ, Gugnin was charged for operating an unlicensed business that transmitted money in and outside the country and failed to comply with the anti-money laundering regulations. He was also charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Source: LinkedIn
Gugnin Massive Crypto Fraud and How it Operated
The Department of Justice (DOJ) made a well-detailed analysis of how the crypto scheme operated. They shared that Gugnin was involved in helping different banks that have been sanctioned in Russia move funds to the United States in order to avoid sanctions and export rules.
Basically, Gugnin acted as a middleman for these Russian banks. He helped them carry out financial activities in the US since they do not have the United States permission to operate.
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From June 2023 to January 2025, Gugnin processed about $530 million worth of transactions through U.S. banks and Tether USDT. He received payments from different Russian banks like Sberbank, VTB, Sovcombank, and Tinkoff, and then he converted the money sent to USD using U.S.-based banks.
Gugnin went ahead and created a company and named it Evita. He used Evita to try and cover the traces of the money he laundered. He faked invoices and regulatory documents.
He even went as far as lying to financial institutions that his company followed the regulatory systems set up, but in truth, he went against the anti-laundering program that was set up and failed to report transactions.
As of this writing, Gugnin has been charged with 22 crimes, with possible charges running into 20 years of imprisonment per crime.
