Overview

• On June 9, Iurii Gugnin was arrested and arraigned in New York and is being held without bail pending trial on a 22-count indictment
• The Department of Justice charges include wire and bank fraud, sanctions and export control violations, money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business
• Prosecutors allege he used Evita Investments and Evita Pay to process about $530 million in Tether transfers through U.S. banks and digital asset platforms between June 2023 and January 2025
• Gugnin is accused of deceiving banks and exchanges about his business with sanctioned Russian clients, including Sberbank, VTB Bank, Sovcombank, Tinkoff and Rosatom, and maintaining personal accounts at Alfa-Bank and Sberbank
• He allegedly facilitated payments for sensitive U.S. export-controlled electronics, digitally altered over 80 invoices and conducted web searches revealing awareness of potential legal scrutiny