Aleksei Andriunin, the 26-year-old founder and CEO of cryptocurrency market maker Gotbit, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston on Friday to charges related to market manipulation and wire fraud.
Andriunin admitted his role in a scheme that manipulated digital token markets on behalf of client companies, part of a broader crackdown on fraudulent activities in the crypto sector.
According to the plea agreement, Andriunin and his firm engaged in "wash trading" from 2018 to 2024—an illicit practice involving the artificial inflation of trading volumes to boost token listings on major cryptocurrency exchanges. The indictment referenced a 2019 online interview in which Andriunin described creating code specifically designed to execute such trades, helping several tokens, including Saitama and Robo Inu, garner increased market attention. Prosecutors asserted that Gotbit generated millions of dollars in wash trades, earning tens of millions of dollars in proceeds for its services.
The guilty plea comes as part of "Operation Token Mirrors," a novel investigation in which the FBI, for the first time, engineered its own digital token to expose crypto fraudsters. Andriunin was extradited from Portugal, where he had been residing since his arrest in October, and his case is one of 15 individual and three firm charges brought forward under the operation.
As part of his plea deal, prosecutors have recommended that Andriunin face up to two years in prison when he is sentenced on June 16. Additionally, Gotbit has agreed to forfeit approximately $23 million in cryptocurrency. Andriunin's lawyer declined to comment on the case.
The case underscores ongoing regulatory and law enforcement efforts to bring greater transparency and accountability to the burgeoning cryptocurrency market, which has long been plagued by allegations of manipulation and fraud. As investigations continue, several individuals linked to the implicated cryptocurrencies are also facing charges, highlighting the wide-reaching impact of these illicit practices in the digital finance arena.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Four million workers across Spain joined a general strike on Wednesday over the country’s deepening housing crisis, unions said, bringing disruption to factories, ports, shops and public transport just weeks before a snap general election.
Spain’s parliament has approved a government package aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, a day after workers staged the first general strike in 14 years over soaring housing costs.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
Microsoft struggled to restore its services on Friday after a major outage disrupted Outlook, Teams and Copilot across the United States and Asia-Pacific region.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Azerbaijan and the UK have pledged to strengthen defence, trade and education cooperation after signing a joint declaration elevating relations to a strategic level in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday (12 November).
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