Roman Vitalyevich Ostapenko, Alexander Evgenievich Oleynik, and Anton Vyachlavovich Tarasov have been charged with money laundering in connection with crypto mixing services Blender.io and Sinbad.io, according to the DOJ.
Before the U.S. government shut down Blender in 2022, the site was up and running for four years. After Blender shut down, Sinbad stepped in as a replacement, but federal agents also went after its platform.
A Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the DOJ named Brent S. Wible said that the defendants made “safe havens” where thieves could wash their money.
The DOJ stated that Ostapenko and Oleynik were arrested last month. Tarasov, on the other hand, is still on the run and is wanted by U.S. prosecutors.
By allegedly operating these mixers, the defendants made it easier for state-sponsored hacking groups and other cybercriminals to profit from offenses that jeopardized both public safety and national security.
DOJ indictment
The DOJ and U.S. Treasury are looking more closely at crypto-mixing services like Blender and Sinbad. This has been criticized by people who support blockchain, who say that these acts violate people’s right to privacy.
Tornado Cash, an Ethereum-based crypto locker that handled transactions worth millions of dollars, was one of the most well-known cases. In August 2022, the U.S. Treasury put restrictions on Tornado Cash, which led to civil action in both the U.S. and the Netherlands against the people who made it.
A federal appeals court threw out the Treasury’s sanctions against Tornado Cash in November 2024, saying that the sanctions were illegal. However, federal investigators have not stopped looking into cases against Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, who started the mixer.
