The Department of Justice charges three Russians with operating cryptocurrency mixers used in online money laundering

January 11, 2025Ravi LakshmananFinancial crime/cryptocurrency

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Friday charged three Russian nationals for their alleged involvement in operating cryptocurrency mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io.

Roman Vitalievich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleinik were arrested on December 1, 2024, in coordination with the Dutch Financial Intelligence and Investigation Service, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

The place where they were arrested was not revealed. The third person, Anton Vyatislavovich Tarasov, remains at large.

The defendants were accused of operating cryptocurrency mixers (also known as tumblers) that served as a safe haven for “criminally derived money laundering,” including the proceeds of ransomware and cyber fraud, allowing state-sponsored hacking groups and cybercriminals to profit from their malicious operations. . .

Specifically, they allowed their paying users to send cryptocurrency to specific recipients in a way designed to obfuscate the source of the cryptocurrency and the fact that it originated from various cybercrimes.

“Criminals around the world allegedly used Blender.io and Sinbad.io to launder money stolen from victims of ransomware, virtual currency thefts, and other crimes.” He said US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan for the Northern District of Georgia.

Blender was launched in 2018 punished By the US Treasury Department in May 2022 after it emerged that the North Korea-linked Lazarus Group used the service to launder cybercrime proceeds, including those stemming from the Ronin Bridge hack.

“The service was advertised on a popular internet forum as including a ‘no-logging policy’ that deletes any traces of user transactions,” the Justice Department said. “Additionally, in the ad, Blender is described as not requiring users to register, register, or “provide any type of details except for the receiving address!”

It is also accused of facilitating money laundering for Russian-allied ransomware gangs such as TrickBot, Conti (formerly Ryuk), Sodinokibi (also known as REvil), and Gandcrab. While Blender halted operations a month before the sanctions were announced, blockchain intelligence firm Elliptic open In May 2023, the service was rebranded and relaunched as “Sinbad” in early October 2022 “very likely”.

More than a year later, international law enforcement He took over Sinbad-linked online infrastructure and Blender were sanctioned for processing millions of dollars worth of virtual currency thefts from the Lazarus Group.

Ostapenko (55 years old) was charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and two counts of running an unlicensed money transfer company.

Oleinik, 44, and Tarasov, 32, were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transfer company. If convicted, the three defendants face a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on these charges.

The development comes as Chainalogy said it has identified more than 1,100 victims of cryptocurrency scams as part of a… Operation Spincaster and Operation DeCloak in partnership with Canadian law enforcement, resulting in a collective loss estimated at more than $25 million.

In these scams, victims are usually directed by scammers to create their own self-custodial wallet, purchase cryptocurrencies on centralized exchanges (CEXs) in Canada, and send these funds to a self-custodial wallet.

“Scammers make payments to victims, urging them to add funds to their own wallets,” Chainalysis said He said. “The scammers then lure victims into sending cryptocurrencies to the destination addresses, thus draining the victim’s wallet/funds.”