Gotbit founder extradited to the U.S. to face market manipulation and fraud conspiracy charges.

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U.S. prosecutors have secured the extradition of Aleksei Andriunin, the Russian founder and CEO of crypto “market maker” Gotbit Consulting LLC, from Portugal to the United States to face federal charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation and wire fraud. According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts, Andriunin was arrested in Portugal on 8 October 2024 and extradited to the U.S. on 25 February 2025, after which he appeared in federal court in Boston to answer an indictment first returned in October 2024 against him, Gotbit, and two Gotbit directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili. The charges stem from Gotbit’s activities between 2018 and 2024 as a prominent crypto “market maker” that allegedly specialized in manipulating trading activity for paying client token projects, including U.S.-based companies and tokens available to U.S. investors. Prosecutors allege that Gotbit and Andriunin offered “market‑manipulation‑as‑a‑service,” using wash trading and other deceptive trading practices to create artificial trading volume and a misleading appearance of liquidity for multiple cryptocurrencies. Court filings and public statements state that Andriunin developed code to conduct large-scale wash trading to boost token volumes, helping clients secure listings on data aggregators like CoinMarketCap and on major exchanges, and that Gotbit generated millions of dollars in fake volume while taking in tens of millions of dollars in fees, some of which Andriunin allegedly routed to his personal Binance account. The case is significant because it highlights an aggressive U.S. enforcement posture against offshore crypto market makers and wash‑trading schemes, illustrates the Justice Department’s willingness to pursue extradition of foreign nationals involved in market manipulation affecting U.S. investors, and runs in parallel with separate SEC civil actions targeting Gotbit and its personnel for similar manipulative conduct in specific token markets.

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