The Russian was detained at the request of the United States in Portugal: he turned out to be the 26-year-old head of the cryptocurrency market maker Gotbit Alexey Andryunin
He is accused of manipulating the market and conducting fictitious transactions that artificially inflate trading volumes for certain tokens.
Gotbit and three other companies that came under investigation worked with low-liquidity crypto assets and memcoins. This is the first case of criminal prosecution for such schemes in the crypto industry.
The FBI, during Operation Token Mirrors, created its own token and entered into deals with the defendants, recording tens of millions of dollars in violations. $25 million confiscated, bots disabled for more than 60 cryptocurrencies.
