Aleksei Andriunin, the founder of Gotbit, a crypto hedge fund and market maker, has been extradited from Portugal to the United States, where he faces charges of market manipulation and wire fraud conspiracy.
Andriunin was arrested by Portuguese authorities on October 8 and was handed over to U.S. officials on October 25.
He later appeared before a federal court in Boston, where he was ordered to remain in custody, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts.
Gotbit Founder and Directors Indicted by US Grand Jury
The extradition follows an indictment by a federal grand jury on October 31, naming Andriunin and two Gotbit directors, Fedor Kedrov and Qawi Jalili.
The case is linked to an undercover operation by the FBI, which created a so-called “trap token,” NexFundAI (NEXF), to catch bad actors engaged in crypto market manipulation.
According to prosecutors, Gotbit operated as a market maker that used software to execute wash trades—artificially inflating trading volumes to help clients secure token listings on exchanges and crypto data aggregators like CoinMarketCap.
Authorities claim that Kedrov and Jalili promoted these wash trading tactics and, in a 2019 interview, admitted to using methods to conceal such trades on public blockchains.
Between 2018 and 2024, Gotbit reportedly generated “tens of millions of dollars” in illicit earnings, a portion of which Andriunin allegedly funneled into his personal Binance account.
If convicted, Andriunin could face up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud, along with fines and asset forfeiture.
The conspiracy charge for market manipulation carries an additional sentence of up to five years.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed a fraud lawsuit against Gotbit and Kedrov in October.
US Crypto Owners Expect Less Regulation
Cryptocurrency enforcement in the United States may ease under the upcoming administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, with regulatory priorities expected to shift.
Speaking at a legal conference in New York, current and former senior government lawyers indicated that while financial fraud cases will still be pursued, the Justice Department’s focus will likely move toward immigration enforcement, a key campaign promise of Trump.
Scott Hartman, co-chief of the securities and commodities task force at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, revealed that fewer resources will be allocated to policing cryptocurrency crimes.
As of late, the SEC has dropped several high-profile investigations and lawsuits against major cryptocurrency companies.
On February 24, 2025, Robinhood Markets Inc. announced that the SEC had concluded its probe into the company’s crypto trading division without pursuing any enforcement action.
The investigation, initiated in May 2024, focused on whether Robinhood had failed to register certain crypto assets as securities on its platform.
Similarly, on February 21, 2025, Coinbase Global Inc. reported that the SEC agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against the cryptocurrency exchange.
The lawsuit had accused Coinbase of operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.
Furthermore, OpenSea has announced that the SEC has concluded its investigation into the non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace without pursuing any enforcement action.
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