Three Russian Nationals Charged With Money Laundering for Operating Sanctioned Crypto Mixing Services

Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik had been arrested last month, and they face money laundering charges.

Three Russian nationals have been charged with money laundering for operating sanctioned crypto mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.

Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko and Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik were arrested last month and face money laundering charges, while a third person linked to the services, Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov, remains at large, according to the DOJ.

Authorities from multiple jurisdictions previously seized and dismantled the computer equipment behind the services. Blender.io was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for helping conceal the crypto proceeds of cyber thefts conducted by North Korean hackers. The move marked the Treasury's first sanctions against a crypto mixer, a service that aims to anonymize transactions and erase the public trail of digital assets.

“According to the indictment, the defendants operated cryptocurrency ‘mixers’ that served as safe havens for laundering criminally derived funds, including the proceeds of ransomware and wire fraud,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent S. Wible, who leads the Justice Department’s criminal division, said in a statement. “By allegedly operating these mixers, the defendants made it easier for state-sponsored hacking groups and other cybercriminals to profit from offenses that jeopardized both public safety and national security.”

The prosecution of crypto mixing services—the controversial businesses that represent both the sector's vulnerability to criminal use and its championing of financial privacy—has been a point of contention for U.S. policymakers and members of Congress.

In the most high-profile case, the Treasury's sanctions on the crypto mixer Tornado Cash were overturned in November by a federal appeals court, which ruled that the technology underpinning such services can't be targeted this way. But the government is still pursuing criminal prosecutions of Tornado Cash's founders.

Blender.io operated from 2018 to 2022 before it was taken down by authorities, to be quickly replaced by Sinbad.io, which drew similar sanctions from the Treasury Department.