Evita Pay has been accused of laundering $530 million using cryptocurrencies

What’s new? The US Attorney’s Office has accused Iurii Gugnin, the founder of New York-based Evita Pay, of helping Russian banks evade sanctions and laundering $530 million. Iurii Gugnin, 38, a Russian citizen and founder of cryptocurrency payment companies Evita Investments and Evita Pay, was arrested on 22 counts alleging that he turned his business into a “covert pipeline for dirty money.”

DOJ press release

What else is known? Gugnin facilitated transactions with sanctioned Russian banks, including Sberbank, VTB Bank, and T-Bank, between June 2023 and January 2025, according to a US DOJ press release.

Gugnin is accused of transferring approximately $530 million through US banks and crypto exchanges, primarily using Tether’s USDT stablecoin.

The indictment alleges that he repeatedly defrauded financial institutions by falsely claiming that Evita “did not conduct business with entities in Russia and did not deal with sanctioned entities.” However, prosecutors allege that he had personal accounts at Alfa Bank and Sberbank while in the United States.

His transactions allegedly helped Russian clients acquire sensitive US technology and nuclear materials while evading international sanctions.

The scheme reportedly involved foreign clients sending Gugnin cryptocurrency, which he then laundered through wallets and bank accounts in the US, converting it into dollars and making payments through Manhattan banks on their behalf.

Prosecutors allege that Gugnin laundered funds for Rosatom by hiding Russian clients’ details in accounts to conceal his activities.

Court documents show he conducted Internet searches for terms such as “how to know if there is an investigation against you,” “money laundering penalties US,” and “penalties for sanctions violations EU luxury goods.”

According to a February report by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, sanctioned jurisdictions received $15,8 billion in cryptocurrency in 2024, representing about 39% of all illegal cryptocurrency transactions globally.

Several Russian-linked crypto platforms have recently been shut down, including 47 Russian-language exchanges without customer identification procedures (KYC) arrested by German police and Russia’s Cryptex, which has processed more than $5,88 billion in transactions since 2018.

In March, international agencies arrested the under-sanctioned Russian exchange Garantex with $100 billion in transaction volume, which at its peak accounted for 82% of all cryptocurrency volumes linked to sanctioned entities.

TRM Labs analysts later concluded that the recently launched Grinex exchange is likely a rebranding of Garantex, as the new platform accepts former Garantex users and redistributes their assets via the ruble-pegged A7A5 stablecoin.

Gunin faces stiff penalties: each bank fraud count carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, with additional charges punishable by up to 20 years in prison.