The founder of Gotbit, Aleksei Andriunin, has been indicted by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) for market manipulation and wire fraud. Aleksei was held after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched a fake crypto company with a token on Ethereum chain, to investigate market manipulation instances.
The allegations against Aleksei who is a Russian national, is said to have emerged from a broader conspiracy from 2018 to 2024 in which Gotbit allegedly assisted various crypto firms in manipulative practices aimed at enhancing their reported trading volumes.
The new indictment also names the two Gotbit directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili, who were earlier accused of engaging in crypto ‘wash trading.’ According to the Department of Justice of the USA, Andriunin kept files of all the actions carried out by the firm, including a comparison of “created volume” from the wash trading with the normal market volume.
Further investigation reveals that two prominent meme coins, Saitama and Robo Inu, are allegedly listed in Gotbit’s client zone. These meme coin organizations are also recently facing separate charges for being involved in “pump-and-dump” scheme.
The company is claimed to have executed wash trades estimated at millions of dollars, causing tens of millions of fraudulent dollars to be made in revenue, where Andriunin is said to have transferred large amounts of funds to his account with Binance.
This investigation is part of an overall operation targeting resistance that started earlier in October when federal prosecutors charged three crypto firms, Gotbit, ZM Quant, and CLS Global, and 15 individuals with fraud related to market manipulation. This particular operation has initiated four arrests, five plea deals, and the confiscation of 25 million dollars worth of crypto assets.
Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy viewed the scheme as a “pump and dump scheme,” and said “47-year-old Andriunin was the mastermind of the scheme and if convicted, could go to prison for up to 20 years for wire fraud alone, among other penalties – supervised release, fines of up to $250,000 or twice the amount gained or lost, restitution and forfeiture.”
Such charges however have a separate five years prison term associated with them.
Also Read: FBI Launches NexFundAI Token to Combat Market Manipulation
