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US Sanctions Two Russians Accused of Using Fraud to Steal Millions in Crypto

The pair is accused of having stolen $16.8 million from customers of three different crypto exchanges, including two in the U.S.

By Danny Nelson, Nikhilesh De
AccessTimeIconSep 16, 2020 at 5:02 p.m. UTC
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 9:56 a.m. UTC
Russian flag behind fence (Shutterstock)

Russian flag behind fence (Shutterstock)

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The U.S. Treasury Department has slapped sanctions on a pair of Russian nationals accused of stealing $16.8 million from customers of three different crypto exchanges, including two in the U.S.

  • According to a U.S. Department of the Treasury press release, Danil Potekhin and Dmitrii Karasavidi impersonated the exchanges using fake websites imitating legitimate exchange portals to obtain customer login information.
  • The exchanges were not named by the Treasury Dept.
  • This information was used to access the customers' accounts and steal their crypto, the Treasury statement said.
  • The defendants allegedly laundered the funds using fake profiles on different exchanges.
  • The exchanges were not identified.
  • The U.S. Secret Service seized "millions of dollars in virtual currency," according to the statement.
  • Bitcoin, ether, monero, litecoin, zcash, dash, bitcoin gold and ethereum classic were all included in the list of sanctioned addresses.
  • Cryptocurrency exchanges are frequent targets for malicious actors in the space, who typically hope the pseudonymous properties of the technology will allow them to better hide their proceeds even though the immutable ledger records all transactions.

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