U.S. DOJ sues Gotbit CEO for allegedly committing wire fraud and market manipulation

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has prosecuted Aleksei Andriunin, founder and CEO of crypto financial services provider Gotbit, of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and market manipulation, according to a press release on CryptoSlate. Two Gotbit directors, Qawi Jalili and Fedor Kedrov, were also charged in the indictment. The DOJ stated in the indictment that Gotbit described itself as a memecoin market maker, leveraging wash trading techniques to manipulate the market from 2018 through this year. Moreover, Gotbit also facilitated millions of U.S. dollars in wash trades and made tens of millions from them, a large amount of which was transferred by Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin into his personal Binance account. Andriunin was arrested in Portugal on Oct. 16.