U.S. and EU law enforcement take down Russian-run crypto exchange

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has dismantled a money laundering platform that provided cashout services to cybercriminals using cryptocurrency.

The illegal exchange, operated by a Russian national, is believed to have processed the staggering $70 million in illicit proceeds, American judicial authorities revealed.

USA disrupts Russian-led virtual money laundromat

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced Wednesday the results of the law enforcement action, carried out with European partners and police in the state.

According to the press release, the FBI has disrupted a crypto trading venue branded E-Note, including by taking down the online infrastructure that underpinned its activities.

The digital-asset exchange allegedly facilitated money laundering by transnational cybercriminal organizations. Among them, some of those targeting healthcare systems and other critical infrastructure in the U.S.

The announcement further detailed:

“Since 2017, the FBI identified more than $70,000,000 of illicit proceeds of ransomware attacks and account takeovers transferred via E-Note payment service and money mule network, including laundered funds stolen or extorted from U.S. victims.”

The office also unveiled the unsealing of an indictment against a person identified as Mykhalio Petrovich Chudnovets, a 39-year-old Russian citizen who has been charged with one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments.

The man has been in the business for quite some time. According to the quoted court documents, he started offering money laundering services to cybercriminals in 2010.

These were provided through the E-Note payment processing service, which was under his control and management. U.S. officials explained:

“Chudnovets worked with financially motivated cybercriminals to transfer criminal proceeds across international borders and to convert those proceeds from cryptocurrency into various cash currencies.”

As part of the coordinated international effort, servers hosting his operations, as well as mobile apps employed by the Russian, have been seized. The same happened with several domains – “e-note.com,” “e-note.ws,” and “jabb.mn.”

U.S. law enforcement also managed to separately obtain earlier copies of the exchange’s servers, including customer databases and records of transactions.

E-Note operator faces up to 20 years in prison

Under U.S. law, the charge against the man behind the crypto laundering business carries a maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars.

While the official announcement did not comment on his whereabouts, the tech news website The Register suggested in a report that he is still at large.

The ongoing investigation is led by the FBI’s cyber task force in Detroit, according to the notice published on the website of the U.S. Justice Department.

The latter praised law enforcement agencies from EU member states, namely the German Federal Criminal Police Office and the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, for their contribution.

Europe itself recently put an end to a major cryptocurrency mixing service within an operation coordinated by Europol, as reported by Cryptopolitan earlier in December.

The platform called Cryptomixer is suspected of processing well over a billion euros’ worth of digital-asset transactions in the past decade, facilitating cybercrime and money laundering across the Old Continent.

Russia has had its share of troubles with similar services. Earlier this year, its law enforcement agencies raided the offices of several crypto exchanges based in the Moscow City business center, as part of an investigation into suspected capital flight.

In the fall of 2024, it launched a series of raids against other crypto trading platforms. Dozens of suspects were named defendants in a case against the operators of UAPS, an anonymous payment system, and the Cryptex exchange, which were laundering money for cybercriminals.

At the beginning of December, a Russian government advisor alleged that two-thirds of the money obtained by fraudsters active in his country is being laundered through cryptocurrency.

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