Russia and the United States conducted a large-scale prisoner exchange: Ilya Yashin, Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan and others were released (2024)

Russia exchanged prisoners with the United States and Germany. According to The Insider, political prisoners Ilya Yashin, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alsou Kurmasheva, Andrei Pivovarov, Oleg Orlov, Alexandra Skochilenko, Liliya Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeeva, Evan Gershkovich, Rico Krieger, Kevin Leak, Demuri Voronin, Vadim Ostanin, Patrick Schoebel, Paul Whelan and Herman were released Moizhes. In exchange, Russia received FSB killer Vadim Krasikov, spies and scammers.

How did the negotiations go?

Negotiations have been going on for several years through various channels. At the beginning of 2022, journalist Hristo Grozev proposed that the Americans make a joint exchange with the Germans, where the key figure from the West would be Vadim Krasikov (convicted thanks to an investigation by The Insider and Bellingcat), and from Russia - Alexey Navalny. At first, the Kremlin intended to negotiate only with the United States. However, Krasikov was arrested by Germany, and negotiations were impossible without Berlin's participation. Putin hoped to exchange Krasikov for the specially arrested American journalist Evan Gershkovich. But the plan failed, since the Germans were not interested in the “American spies” arrested in Russia and were ready to discuss the exchange of Krasikov only for Navalny.

The negotiations were complicated by the fact that German Foreign Minister Annalena Bärbock believed that the release of Krasikov's killer was unacceptable. In the United States, this opinion was taken into account, since Bärbock was perceived as the main ally in Germany in the context of the war with Ukraine. By October 2023, a consensus was found, it seemed that everything was heading towards an 8-8 exchange, where the main figures for the exchange were Krasikov and Navalny. Until the last moment, Russia did not confirm that it was ready to exchange Navalny. As a result, he was killed in prison, after which the West lost all interest in negotiations.

In April 2024, the Germans made it clear that they might still be interested in an exchange, but only an asymmetrical one: for one Krasikov, Putin must give up many political prisoners at once. In the Russian Federation the situation was also changing. Initially, on the Russian side, the key figure in the negotiations was Sergei Beseda, head of the Fifth Service of the FSB, responsible for relations with foreigners.

On the subject: A German was sentenced to death in Belarus for causing $500 worth of damage: he allegedly tried to help Ukraine

In June 2024, Putin dismissed Beseda and replaced him with Alexei Komkov. Around the same time, the German BND, represented by its deputy head Philipp Wolf, officially joined the negotiations, and within a few weeks the parties agreed on their positions.

The Russians were released by a presidential pardon. Formally, it does not require not only an admission of guilt, but even a petition for pardon.

Who did Russia get?

Vadim Krasikov

A hired killer who served in the Vympel unit of the FSB TsSN, and then became the perpetrator of a number of contract killings, including businessman Alexander Kozlov in Karelia in 2007, businessman Albert Nazranov in Moscow in 2015, Chechen refugee Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in 2019 and others.

In Russia, Krasikov was put on the wanted list, but he managed to avoid the life imprisonment that threatened him. Instead, he ended up at the training base of the Central Sports Center of the FBS.

Having received a false passport in the name of Sokolov and a modernized Glock pistol, he went to Berlin to deal with Zelimkhan Khangoshvili. Putin publicly called Khangoshvili a terrorist, but no evidence of his involvement in any terrorist attacks was ever presented.

After the murder, Russia denied any involvement in it. The Insider managed to find Sokolov's real name and documents confirming his affiliation with the special services, after which he received a life sentence in Germany. After this, Putin called the killer a “patriot” and announced his desire to exchange him for Evan Gershkovich.

Slovenian illegal immigrants

Spouses Artem and Anna Dultsev, posing as Argentine citizens named Ludwig Gish and Maria Rosa Mayer Muñoz, lived in Slovenia. They were detained in Ljubljana at the end of 2022. Maria posed as the owner of an art gallery, but she was not known on the Slovenian art market.

They were identified by comparing the fingerprints of the pseudo-Argentines and the Dultsevs, which were at the disposal of Interpol. On the eve of the exchange, they confessed. The press reported that they were identified as employees of the SVR, but they are more likely to be illegal immigrants from the GRU.

Spy Pavel Rubtsov / Pablo Gonzalez

On February 27, 2022, GRU agent Pavel Rubtsov, posing as Spanish journalist Pablo Gonzalez, was detained by Poland on the Polish-Ukrainian border and accused of spying for Russia. It was alleged that he used his status as a journalist to collect information for the Russian intelligence services. Gonzalez collected information in Ukraine and ingratiated himself with the Russian opposition. On the digital media seized from him, they found detailed reports on the activities of Zhanna Nemtsova and people from her circle. Gonzalez was especially interested in the participants of the summer school of journalism from Ukraine and the USA.

Hacker Roman Seleznev

In 2017, the federal court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle sentenced Roman Seleznev to 27 years in prison. He is the son of Russian State Duma deputy from the LDPR Valery Seleznev.

In 2014, Roman Seleznev was detained in the Maldives and handed over to the United States.

The American secret services have been looking for him since 2002. The Russian was found guilty of fraud, computer hacking, possession of illegally acquired credit cards and theft of personal data.

Seleznev, together with his accomplices, hacked the computers of cash registers of American stores and restaurants, installed malware in them, which stole the bank card details of visitors and periodically sent them to Seleznev. The Russian traded this data on his websites.

The Federal Prosecutor's Office for the Western District of Washington estimates that the damage caused by Seleznev reaches at least $170 million.

Businessman Vladislav Klyushin

He was arrested on March 21, 2021, in Sion, Switzerland, at the request of US authorities.

Bloomberg suggests that Klyushin has information about hacking the computers of the US Democratic Party and stealing files, which were then used to smear Hillary Clinton.

However, Klyushin was accused of something else - hacking into the computers of Donnelly Financial (DFIN) and Toppan Merrill. According to a statement from the federal prosecutor's office in Massachusetts, the Russian businessman and his accomplices used classified information to successfully play on the stock exchange.

The investigation established a connection between Klyushin and Ivan Ermakov, whom American security forces call a former GRU employee. In particular, Ermakov was involved in the case of Russian hackers, GRU employees, who allegedly interfered in the 2016 US presidential election in order to help Donald Trump.

In Russia, Klyushin headed the M-13 company. She is known for her “Katyusha” program, which monitors the media and blogger sites. It is used by the Russian Presidential Administration and Russian federal departments.

In September 2023, Vladislav Klyushin was sentenced to 9 years in prison.

Norwegian illegal

In May 2022, a court in Norway charged an employee of the Arctic University of Tromsø with espionage and published his full name. It was 44-year-old Mikhail Valerievich Mikushin. He posed as Brazilian citizen José Assis Giammaria and in recent years successfully worked at the Norwegian University of Tromsø. The Insider was able to confirm Mikushin's affiliation with the GRU.

Vadim Konoshchenok

The detention of Vadim Konoshchenko in Estonia became known in December 2022.

On October 27, 2022, he was stopped at the Estonian border with 35 different types of semiconductors and other electronic components, as well as several thousand American-made 6,5 mm ammunition used in sniper rifles.

On November 24, he was stopped again at the border while trying to smuggle 20 boxes of thousands of American cartridges into Russia, including .338-caliber sniper ammunition.

Konoshchenko was arrested in Estonia on a warrant issued by the Federal District Court of New York State. Estonian authorities searched a warehouse registered to his son and found about 170 kg of ammunition. In July 2023, he was extradited to the United States.

The US Department of Justice calls Konoshchenok an FSB colonel. In the correspondence of the Russian, American authorities found a message in which he boasts of his “new passport photo” in the uniform of an FSB colonel. The horseman has not yet been convicted.

In addition to Konoshchenko, four more Russians and two Americans are facing charges of conspiracy related to money laundering and the purchase of military technologies for the Russian authorities in the United States.

The indictment states that Konoshchenok, through the Sertal company authorized by the FSB, purchased and transported sanctioned goods to Russia for the Rostec state corporation and other organizations, in particular the FSB Scientific and Technical Intelligence Directorate.

Konoshchenok, according to prosecutors, sent or smuggled goods purchased in the United States from Estonia to Russia. These were dual-use electronics, ammunition and other items subject to export controls. Konoshchenok discussed with his accomplices how to fabricate documents to hide the transportation of ammunition, which in one case they passed off as auto parts. Konoshchenok did not admit his guilt. The Russian embassy in the United States did not comment on his connections with the FSB.

Who did Russia liberate?

Vladimir Kara-Murza

In April 2023, the court sentenced activist and publicist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison on charges of spreading “fakes” about the army, collaboration with an undesirable organization and treason.

In public speeches in the United States and Europe, he spoke about state terror for political reasons, election fraud, human rights violations in Russia, and called it an aggressor country in the war with Ukraine. According to the investigation, in this way he “created threats to the external security and territorial integrity” of Russia. Kara-Murza, for example, was accused of harming Russia “out of selfish motives” when he participated in the ceremony of presenting the Helsinki Committee prize to political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev.

Employees of NII-2 FSB made two attempts to poison the oppositionist, and the names of the suspects were named. Kara-Murza filed a complaint of attempted murder, but he was denied a criminal case.

After the assassination attempts, the politician began to have serious health problems. He suffers from a serious chronic disease that prevents him from serving his sentence in a correctional colony - polyneuropathy. On July 10, he was admitted to Omsk Regional Hospital No. 11 of the Federal Penitentiary Service for a medical examination.

Ilya Yashin

On December 9, 2022, the Meshchansky District Court of Moscow sentenced Yashin to 8,5 years in a general regime colony on charges of distributing “fakes” about the Russian army.

The case was opened because of Yashin’s stream about the crimes of the Russian military in Bucha. Before that, he was fined 30 thousand rubles under the article of “discrediting the Russian army” for publishing a photograph from 1969 from protests against the Vietnam War with the caption “Bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.” 50 years have passed, but the slogan is still relevant. In total, four protocols were drawn up against Yashin under the article on “discrediting” the army.

Alsou Kurmasheva

She is the editor of Idel.Realii (Radio Liberty project), a citizen of Russia and the United States. Kurmasheva, 47, lived and worked in Prague, Czech Republic.

In May 2023, Kurmasheva came to Russia for family reasons. When she tried to fly to the Czech Republic on June 2, she was detained at Kazan airport. Kurmasheva had both passports confiscated - Russian and American - and then fined for not informing Russian authorities about her second citizenship.

On October 18, Kurmasheva was detained as part of a criminal case initiated under Part 3 of Art. 330.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Failure to fulfill the obligation established by the legislation of the Russian Federation to provide to the authorized body the documents necessary for inclusion in the register of foreign agents.” As Kurmasheva’s lawyer Edgar Matevosyan explained, according to the Russian authorities, the journalist, as a potential “foreign agent,” should have denounced herself.

In December, it became known that another case was opened against Kurmasheva under the article on military “fakes.” The occasion was her editorial work on the book “No to War. 40 stories of Russians opposing the invasion of Ukraine." Since October 2023, the journalist has been in jail.

On July 19, the Supreme Court of Tatarstan sentenced Alsa Kurmasheva to 6 years and 6 months in prison. The case was considered behind closed doors. The journalist's lawyer, Edgar Matevosyan, said that his client had received a final verdict and there would not be another trial.

Evan Gershkovitch

A Wall Street Journal journalist was sentenced in Russia to 16 years in prison for espionage. Gershkovich became the first employee of a foreign media outlet in the history of modern Russia to be detained on such charges. He was arrested in March 2023 in Yekaterinburg, when he flew in to interview PR man Yaroslav Shirshikov on the topic of society’s attitude towards recruitment into the Wagner PMC. Russian security forces chased the reporter while he was carrying out one of his editorial assignments, recorded his movements on camera and put pressure on his sources. The journalist assumed that his phone could be tapped. During another trip, to Pskov, he was also followed by unknown people and filmed.

According to the prosecution, Gershkovich “on instructions from the CIA in March 2023, collected secret information in the Sverdlovsk region about the activities of the defense enterprise JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod for the production and repair of military equipment.” According to the photographer who worked with him, the reporter was collecting material for an article about how people in Russian regions perceive the war, for which he visited Yekaterinburg and Nizhny Tagil and planned to go to other cities. According to media reports, Gershkovich was also interested in recruitment into the Wagner PMC.

Oleg Orlov

A criminal case was opened against 70-year-old human rights activist, Chairman of Memorial Oleg Orlov, in March 2023 after searches in the organization’s office as part of the case “on the rehabilitation of Nazism.” Orlov was accused of writing an article in which he called Russia’s military actions in Ukraine “a severe blow to the future of the country.” An article entitled “They wanted fascism - they got it” was published in the French publication Mediapart, and then the human rights activist published it on his Facebook page.

On October 11, 2023, the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Oleg Orlov to a fine of 150 thousand rubles. The prosecutor's office filed an appeal against the court's verdict, demanding that the sentence be increased to three years in prison. On February 27, 2024, the court found Orlov guilty and sentenced him to 2,5 years in prison. Immediately after his admission to pre-trial detention center No. 5 “Vodnik,” 70-year-old Orlov was asked to sign an agreement to be sent to the front in Ukraine. When he reminded him of his age, the pre-trial detention center staff said that “nothing bothers them.”

In 1988, Oleg Orlov became a member of the Memorial initiative group, which advocates for the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in the USSR. He was a confidant of human rights activist Sergei Kovalev in the elections to the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, worked in the apparatus of the Supreme Council, and also developed laws on the humanization of the Russian penitentiary system and the rehabilitation of victims of political repression. It was then that he became chairman of Memorial.

Since 1994, Orlov worked in the military conflict zone in Chechnya, personally met with Chechen leaders Dzhokhar Dudayev and Aslan Maskhadov, participated in negotiations on the exchange of prisoners and inspected hospitals and prisoner of war camps. In 1995, the human rights activist participated in negotiations with terrorists who, under the command of Shamil Basayev, carried out a terrorist attack in Budyonnovsk. After the successful completion of the negotiations, members of Kovalev’s group (including Oleg Orlov) became voluntary hostages as guarantors of the agreements reached in exchange for the release of most of the hostages.

In 2007, on the eve of an opposition rally in Nazran, Oleg Orlov and a group of television journalists from REN TV were captured by masked armed men. Threatening them with weapons, they put black bags over the heads of the hostages and took them outside the city to a field, where they were dragged out of the car, thrown to the ground and began to beat them. In 2017, the ECHR recognized the responsibility of the Russian authorities for the kidnapping of Orlov in Nazran.

Even before the criminal case in June 2021, Orlov complained to the ECHR about threats from the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Alexandra Skochilenko

Skochilenko was detained on April 11, 2022, before which her home was searched. According to investigators, on March 31, the artist distributed information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in the Perekrestok store: instead of price tags for goods, the girl inserted messages about civilians killed in the shelling of the Mariupol Drama Theater.

On November 16, 2023, the Vasileostrovsky District Court of St. Petersburg sentenced Alexandra to 7 years in prison. Soon after the verdict, the judge in the Skochilenko case was promoted to deputy chairman of the Kalininsky District Court.

Alexandra has serious health problems: congenital heart disease, gluten intolerance and bipolar disorder. In her last word, the artist asked the judges to think about the harm that her stay in the pre-trial detention center brings her, and to release her under house arrest. But the complaint was rejected.

Andrey Pivovarov

On May 31, 2021, the ex-head of Open Russia Andrei Pivovarov was removed from the St. Petersburg - Warsaw flight and detained at Pulkovo airport after passing through passport control. A criminal case was opened against him under the article on carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization. The basis for the accusation was that Pivovarov, while in Krasnodar, on August 12, 2020, published on Facebook “information material “United Democrats”” with a fundraising campaign.

Later, 30 posts and one repost on Facebook were added to the charge, which relate to protests in Khabarovsk, disagreement with amendments to the Constitution and support for those detained at rallies. In July 2022, Pivovarov was sentenced to four years in prison. In addition, for eight years he is prohibited from engaging in social and political activities, including using the Internet. Later, in May 2023, he was transferred to a strict regime in a Karelian colony and was repeatedly placed in a punishment cell.

Ksenia Fadeeva

This is the former head of Navalny's headquarters in Tomsk. In December 2023, she was sentenced to 9 years in prison on charges of organizing the activities of an extremist community using her official position and participating in a non-profit organization that infringes on the identity and rights of citizens. In addition, Fadeeva was fined 500 thousand rubles.

The human rights society Memorial considers Fadeeva a political prisoner, since the reason for the persecution was her work at Navalny’s headquarters. Since 2020, Fadeeva has sat in the Tomsk City Duma. She was stripped of her powers in June this year after the verdict came into force.

Liliya Chanysheva

The former head of the Ufa headquarters of Alexei Navalny was arrested in Ufa in November 2021. She became the first defendant in the case of creating an “extremist community” after FBK and Navalny’s headquarters were recognized as such, despite the fact that they were immediately dissolved. In fact, extremist charges against Chanysheva were brought retroactively for activities at a time when the organizations had not yet been recognized as extremist.

In June 2023, she was found guilty of creating an extremist community, calling for extremism and creating an organization that violates the rights of citizens. However, she was sentenced only under the article on organizing an “extremist community.” For the remaining two articles, the activist was released from punishment due to the expiration of the statute of limitations. In her last speech, Chanysheva stated that she was being tried for legal political activity. The prosecutor asked for 12 years in prison.

Vadim Ostanin

The former head of Navalny’s Barnaul headquarters led the headquarters first in Biysk and then in Barnaul. At his post, he talked about local corrupt officials and helped residents of the Altai Territory influence the work of officials.

He was detained in December 2021, and a criminal case was opened against him for participation in an extremist community and a non-profit organization that infringes on the individual. In March 2023, Ostanin, already in a pre-trial detention center, said that his health had deteriorated due to the conditions of detention. According to him, he was “promised bad treatment” if he “didn’t tell everything.”

In July 2023, he was sentenced to 9 years in a general regime colony.

Rico Krieger

Former employee of the German Red Cross, medic Krieger, was detained in Belarus in October 2023. He was charged with six counts: illegal actions in relation to firearms, rendering transport or means of communication unusable, creating or participating in an extremist group, undercover activity, mercenary activity and an act of terrorism.

It was alleged that Krieger arrived in Belarus in October 2023 under the guise of a tourist, but in reality - on instructions from the Ukrainian special services. He allegedly took an improvised explosive device from a cache and planted it on the railroad tracks on October 5. Damage from the explosion was estimated at $516, no people were injured. Krieger was sentenced to death.

On July 30, 2024, Alexander Lukashenko pardoned Krieger.

German Moizhes

On May 28, lawyer and ideologist of the cycling movement Herman Moizhes, a citizen of Germany and Russia, was detained. He was charged with high treason. At first they tried to stop him on the embankment of the Kryukov Canal in St. Petersburg, but he was on a bicycle and mistook the security forces’ maneuvers for inappropriate driver behavior, so he simply dodged and drove away. Moizhes was detained near a house on the embankment of the Fontanka River and taken to the Moscow Lefortovo pre-trial detention center; at the request of the special services, the court arrested him for two months. The case was handled by the central office of the FSB. The house where his daughter's mother lives was searched. The warrant indicated Article 275 - high treason.

Kevin Leake

18-year-old Lik became the first schoolboy convicted of treason in Russia. He was sentenced to four years in a general regime colony in December 2023.

According to the court decision, he photographed the “places of deployment” of the military unit in Maykop, after which he sent the photographs by e-mail to a “representative of a foreign state.” Lik is a citizen of Germany and Russia; in the summer of 2022, his mother decided to return to Germany with her son.

Demuri (Dieter) Voronin

A citizen of Russia and Germany, the 45-year-old political scientist is a defendant in the case of journalist Ivan Safronov.

Voronin was listed as a member of the German Association for Eastern European Studies (DGO) and the Russian Association for Public Relations (RASO). From 2015 to 2019, he headed the Russian company Resost, which, among other things, was engaged in political consulting.

Voronin was detained in February 2021 during a visit to Russia and accused of allegedly receiving information from Safronov, which he then sold to foreign intelligence services. The indictment alleged that Safronov and Voronin transmitted secret information about the activities of the Russian Armed Forces in Syria to German intelligence and the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

In March 2023, the Moscow City Court found Voronin guilty of treason and sentenced him to 13 years and 3 months in a maximum security colony.

Patrick Schoebel

A German citizen was detained in January 2024 in Pulkovo because of six gummies, which experts found to contain marijuana.

During the trial, Schöbel said that in his home country such candies are sold legally, he did not know about the ban on such narcotic substances in Russia, and he bought the bears a year ago to use before long flights. I was waiting for the court's decision.

Paul Whelan

Former Marine, American Paul Whelan, was arrested in 2018 when he flew to Russia for the wedding of his former colleague. In June 2020, he was found guilty of espionage against Russia and sentenced to 16 years in a maximum security colony. He pleaded not guilty.

On December 28, 2018, he was detained by FSB officers in a hotel room after receiving a USB drive from a Russian intelligence officer. According to the investigation, the records contained on it referred to employees of one of the divisions of the economic security service of the FSB. Whelan himself, after his arrest, stated that he expected to receive from an acquaintance in the Metropol room a “flash drive” with photographs of churches from Sergiev Posad, where he vacationed with a Russian officer, his old friend.

Whelan himself linked his criminal prosecution to a debt of about 100 thousand rubles, which his longtime acquaintance, an FSB operative, allegedly did not want to repay. We are talking about a major in the “K” department of the special service named Yatsenko, who handed over to Whelan on December 28, 2018, along with a bottle of whiskey, a flash card that contained the data of the operatives of his unit.

According to Paul Whelan's lawyers, after their client was detained, they were told that he could be exchanged for Viktor Bout, who was serving a sentence in an American prison from 2012 to 2022 on charges of illegal arms deals and financing terrorism, but the exchange took place without Whelan's participation . Bout was exchanged for American basketball player Brittney Greiner, who was convicted in Russia of importing drugs.

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US Exchange Fund

As writes edition with the BBC, information about two more Russians who are serving sentences in the United States has disappeared from the database of American prisons. It is assumed that they can also be used for exchange. Who are these people?

Maxim Marchenko

On July 17, 2024, an American court sentenced Maxim Marchenko to three years in prison. He was found guilty of supplying microelectronics to Russia in circumvention of sanctions.

The 52-year-old Russian was arrested by the FBI in September 2023 on the island of Fiji. One of the bureau agents, posing as a salesman for a company selling electronics, corresponded with Marchenko undercover for several months.

Marchenko lived in Hong Kong for many years. According to American authorities, there he opened a network of legal entities, which he used to circumvent sanctions. He is accused of supplying dual-use microdisplays to Russia, which can be used in weapon sights and night vision devices.

Marchenko's case is not unique. After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and the introduction of Western sanctions, Russia allowed parallel imports of goods, that is, imports without the permission of the copyright holder.

After this, complex supply chains began to emerge from several companies in different countries, with the help of which they disguised the fact that the final buyer was Russia.

Alexander Vinnik

US authorities consider Alexander Vinnik the founder of the BTC-e cryptocurrency exchange. At one time, it was the largest Russian-language exchange and one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. American authorities accuse him of laundering more than $4 billion.

The exchange did not comply with US legislation, and the country's authorities classified its entire turnover as illegal. In addition, American authorities claim that bitcoins stolen from the Japanese crypto exchange Mt.Gox were sold on BTC-e.

In the USA, Vinnik was facing a 50-year sentence, but he made a deal with the prosecutor’s office. In early May, the cryptocurrency maker admitted his guilt, and his lawyer Arkady Bukh told the Russian agencies RIA Novosti and TASS that after the deal, the term could be a maximum of 10 years in prison.

Vinnik was arrested at the request of the FBI in June 2017 in Greece, where he was vacationing with his family. In 2020, he was extradited to France, where a criminal case was also opened against him. There he was sentenced to five years in prison for identity theft and extortion. In 2022, when his sentence in France expired, Vinnik was extradited to the United States.

The Russian Federation also tried to achieve Vinnik’s extradition. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office accused him of stealing 600 thousand rubles from an unnamed organization.

In 2018, a criminal case was opened in Russia against Alexey Bilyuchenko, who was Vinnik’s partner on the BTC-e exchange, under an article of fraud. In February 2022, Bilyuchenko was arrested in the Russian Federation in connection with the collapse of another crypto exchange, Wex. In the United States, he was also charged with money laundering in 2023.

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