US arrests Russian entrepreneur for restricted technology purchases
A Russian businessman has been detained in the United States for purchasing American technology. US prosecutors have accused cryptocurrency entrepreneur, Yuri Gugnin, of laundering over US$500 million and aiding in Russia's pursuit of acquiring sensitive American technology.
Source: Financial Times
Details: The founder of Florida-listed payment company Evita Pay and a Delaware company called Evita Investments has been charged with bank fraud, money laundering and other crimes. The Department of Justice reported that he was arrested in New York.
Prosecutors say Gugnin made payments for foreign customers towards US electronics subject to export controls and for parts on behalf of the Russian state nuclear technology company Rosatom.
Investigators note that Gugnin came to the United States in 2022 and organised a money-laundering operation under the guise of launching a cryptocurrency. He then used this cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and export controls, deceiving US financial institutions. Prosecutors state that he was accused of "turning a cryptocurrency company into a covert pipeline for dirty money".
Gugnin laundered cryptocurrency customers' funds through cryptocurrency wallets and US bank accounts, converting funds into US dollars or other currencies. Prosecutors say he facilitated nearly US$2 billion in transactions and that many of his clients were in Russia and held funds in Russian banks under sanctions. Other customers were in China and the United Arab Emirates.
According to the investigation, the entrepreneur made payments for Iwu Vortex Import and Export Co Limited, a Hong Kong distributor which the United States imposed sanctions against last year, accusing it of illegally exporting marine equipment to Russia.
Court documents describe a deal in which a South Korean group agreed to provide Moscow with parts and equipment that it then supplied to the Russian state-owned company Rosatom.
Gugnin is also accused of facilitating a Russian client's purchase of a server manufactured by a US technology company; exporting the technology to Russia without a licence is illegal.
Prosecutors said Gugnin had ties to government officials in Russia and Iran that could help facilitate his escape from prosecution, including members of Russian intelligence services. The maximum sentence that a suspect can receive is 30 years in prison.
Background:
Earlier, it was reported that a court in New York sentenced the founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency platform Celsius Network LLC – a native of Ukraine, Alex Mashinsky – to 12 years in prison.
He was found guilty of fraud with goods and securities. Celsius went bankrupt in July 2022, and Celsius customers lost access to assets worth $4.7 billion. The founder himself managed to withdraw $8 million.
Earlier, the US Department of Justice accused two top managers of the American company Eleview International Inc. of exporting technologies subject to sanctions to Russia for US$6.4 million.
It is noted that Oleg Nayandin and Vitaly Borisenko entered into a conspiracy and developed three schemes to circumvent export restrictions imposed on Russia, transporting American goods and technologies through Kazakhstan, Türkiye and Finland.
A German court launched criminal proceedings against two former executives of engineering giant Siemens who are accused of violating sanctions by helping to export gas turbines to Russian-occupied Crimea.
Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
32 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Oil Tanker Titans Stay Calm But Cautious After Mideast Warnings
Several of the world's largest ocean-tanker operators said they remained calm but cautious after risk warnings from naval forces for vessels operating in and around the Persian Gulf, the world's largest oil-producing region. The risk notices were issued around the same time as US ordered some staff to leave its embassy in Baghdad on Wednesday, and followed threats by Tehran to strike American assets in the region in the event Iran is attacked over its nuclear program.
USA Today
35 minutes ago
- USA Today
Newsom v. Trump heads to court as protests against ICE raids spread: Updates
Newsom v. Trump heads to court as protests against ICE raids spread: Updates Show Caption Hide Caption See how Los Angeles protests intensified over one weekend What started as a small protest over immigration raids on Friday ballooned into large demonstrations throughout the weekend. Here's what happened. Nearly a week after protests over federal immigration enforcement raids first broke out in Los Angeles, a showdown between federal and state officials is expected to land in court on Thursday over whether President Donald Trump can use the military to assist the raids against California leaders' wishes. In the hearing, scheduled for Thursday afternoon, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco will hear Gov. Gavin Newsom's motion for a temporary restraining order limiting the activities of the 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines Trump deployed in Los Angeles. Newsom has decried the military intervention as an illegal waste of resources and is asking the court to block the troops' participation in law enforcement activities. He ultimately wants the National Guard returned to state control and Trump's actions declared illegal. Downtown Los Angeles remained under a curfew after days of demonstrations against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led to hundreds of arrests. The protests broke out on June 6 in response to ongoing ICE raids that have sparked fear among immigrant communities. While many protests have been relatively peaceful, some have turned into scenes of chaos as police fired with less lethal munitions, tear gas and flash-bangs to disperse crowds. "If I didn't act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now," Trump said at an event at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday. State and local leaders have disputed Trump's claims, saying the decision has only provoked the unrest, likening the president's actions to "authoritarian regimes." U.S. Northern Command announced on Wednesday that the 700 active-duty Marines had completed their training for the Los Angeles mission, which included de-escalation and crowd control. The Marines were expected to be deployed within 48 hours to protect federal officers and property. National Guard commander Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman said on Wednesday that the troops wouldn't conduct arrests or searches and seizures, but would be authorized to detain protesters temporarily. Protests are planned for 1,800 communities across the country on June 14, the same day Trump holds a military parade in Washington, D.C. For decades, the GOP has claimed most of the symbols of patriotism, including the American flag, but the people protesting Trump, a Republican, say they are the true patriots now. The rallies, named "No Kings Day" to oppose what they see as Trump's power grab, are expected to be the largest and most numerous protests since Trump's second term began, dwarfing the Hands Off protests in early April that drew as many as 1 million Americans to the streets at more than 1,000 rallies. No Kings Day was organized by grassroots groups in cities and towns of all sizes to coincide with the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary celebration, which is also Trump's 79th birthday and Flag Day. Administration officials insist it is a coincidence that the parade falls on Trump's birthday. Read more here. Contributing: Reuters
Forbes
37 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Unofficial #1 On Forbes' 2025 World's Most Influential CMOs List
Wondering if and when the other shoes will drop getty The Unofficial #1 designation is given to a person, force, or condition with outsized influence over CMOs and their ability to influence growth. — Stepping back 125 years to early 20th-century New York City, and you find the origins of an almost apt metaphor for the current state of global affairs and global marketing alike. Returning to your tenement apartment after a day in the factory, you'd sit on your bed and begin getting out of your work clothes. As you took off your first shoe and it dropped to the floor, your downstairs neighbor couldn't help but hear its thud through the tenement's thin ceiling. Then they'd wait for the thud of your other shoe dropping. While these are certainly 'other shoe' times, the metaphor is only almost apt because then, there was a certainty the other shoe would ultimately drop. Today however, nothing is certain, little is inevitable or predictable, most everyone is on edge, and seemingly any crazy thing could happen (or not) in any given moment. In fact, in April and across 142 countries, The International Monetary Fund's World Uncertainty Index, recorded the single highest level of global uncertainty—higher than during the Pandemic or the 2008 economic crisis—since tracking began 17 years ago. While much is uncertain, regardless of your politics or nationality, what's not is that no one and nothing has greater influence over the ripple effects of what happens next from shoes that do or don't fall than the current American president. And so—and not because by any objective measure he is a marketing savant—for his outsized influence on global uncertainty, its near and long-term consequences, and thus on what CMOs and the brands and companies they help steward do and don't next, I've named Donald Trump The Unofficial #1 on the 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list. No one and nothing thrive on uncertainty, and the discomfort, wariness, volatility and the should-we-or-shouldn't-we vacillation it creates is good for neither one's best laid marketing plans nor buying behavior. Whether by design or disposition, from Wall Street to Main Streets, China to Chicago, the chaos and radical uncertainty sown by the President's words and deeds finds consumer and corporate sentiment jumpier than Elon at a Trump rally before their break-up. Any semblance of predictability around tariffs, interest rates, taxes, retaliatory taxes, prices, jobs, inflation, recession, geo-political alliances, trade wars and military ones, is confounding capital markets, forecasts, budgets, supply chains, human brains and emotions in real-time. Willingness to spend by consumers and companies alike whose expectations are tossed-about by contradictory signals and volatile moods is throttled. So, corporate guidance and forecasts are being cut, as costs and prices remain in limbo. No small part of why Global GDP is expected to grow at its slowest rate in almost 20 years, and why The World Bank anticipates this being the weakest decade of economic growth in almost 60. Admonishing anyone getty As quick to publicly admonish and/or punish stalwarts of the global economy from Apple to Walmart to Los Angeles as he is to threaten Presidents Zelensky, Ramaphosa and Xi, Greenland and NATO, his all-caps proclamations can have as much near-term impact on global markets—and thus marketing—as any actual policy that may or may not follow. CEOs and CFOs want growth without risk and savings without sales impacts, as if that were a thing. Legal wants safety. Boards want clarity. And no one wants to be wrong. All of which delays corporate actions and decisions, and equally, makes the creative and bold-ideas so essential to value creation and capture feel riskier than they'd otherwise be. While self-help books are replete with counsel about not obsessing over that which you can't control, that's not advice CMOs can heed (at least professionally) at a time when distracted audiences are harder to predict, reach and influence; when longer-term strategies seem disposable, and most everyone is doomscrolling their feeds on the regular to see what was or wasn't said and how this might affect what they do or don't next. Over the past five years, CMOs have learned that this year's plan could become this week's fire drill or act of triage in any given moment. But, thanks to the President, this has never been more so. And so, chief marketers are pushed to 'do more with less,' (not unreasonable in and of itself) and to just 'wait and see.' Yet so it goes during this second Trump presidency, and so it goes for CMOs wondering when another all-caps tweet will drop. Or not. As Tom Petty sang, 'the waiting is the hardest part,' which is why this year, for his outsized influence on markets, marketers and marketing (to say nothing of humanity), Donald Trump is The Unofficial #1 on the 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list. Thank you for your attention to this matter. ... Note. I'd finished writing this when reminded that Mr. Trump was also named Time's Person of the Year, in December. Reminded, I considered going in another direction but, despite the redundancy, decided no one/nothing is a more appropriate choice. Under no illusion about the difference in attention the two designations get; I also hope to offer a reminder to the CEOs, CFOs and Board Directors reading this that anyone or anything influencing global conversations and sentiment influences what CMOs do and don't in turn. ... For those interested, in 2022, I named 'Anyone' the Unofficial #1 because 'Anyone' with a keyboard can change the trajectory of a brand and business in an instant. In 2023, Sam Altman was recognized as proxy for the then (and still) TBD implications of GAI on marketing. Last year, 'The CEO' was the Unofficial #1 for their oft unwitting and unintentionally but ultimately marketing-ignorant influence over the expertise and actions of CMOs.
