The founder and General Director of the Gotbit Market Maker, Alexei Andryunin, was extradited from Portugal to the United States to charge him in the case of cryptocurrency fraud.

On October 6, 2024, Andryunin was detained in Portugal at the request of the United States. This and other detentions took place as part of the defense of the Ministry of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Gotbit and three other companies – ZM Quant, CLS Global and MyTrade. The US Department of Justice accuses Alexei Andryunin of fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the market. By the aggregate of accusations, he can face up to 20 years in prison.

According to court documents, Andryunin developed a code for “fictitious trade” cryptocurrencies in order to artificially overestimate the volume of trading. This helped the tokens get into the CoinmarketCap list and contributed to crypto -rhizas listing. According to investigators, from 2018 to 2024, the company’s employees used Andryunin’s scheme, using several accounts to hide the data substitution in the blockchain.

It is alleged that part of Andryunin transferred to his personal account to Binance, and Gotbit earned tens of millions of dollars on this scheme. According to the prosecutors, this was the first criminal prosecution for the manipulation of the market in the field of cryptocurrencies.

Earlier in Russia, police officers detained four people who are supposedly standing for the creation of the Rapidpay illegal payment system, including those who served cryptocurrency exchange points.