Evita Pay (Iurii Gugnin)
Summary
Evita Pay (operating as Evita Investments Inc. and Evita Pay Inc.) was a New York-based cryptocurrency payment company founded by Iurii Gugnin, a Russian national. On June 9, 2025, Gugnin was arrested and charged in a 22-count federal indictment in the Eastern District of New York, alleging he used Evita to funnel approximately $530 million through U.S. banks and cryptocurrency exchanges on behalf of clients at sanctioned Russian financial institutions between June 2023 and January 2025. Gugnin was ordered detained pending trial and faces potential sentences of up to 30 years per bank fraud count.
Connected Entities
1 entities · 10 linked investigationsTimeline(6 events)
2023-06-01
Alleged scheme begins: Gugnin allegedly starts using Evita Investments and Evita Pay to route funds from clients at sanctioned Russian banks through U.S. financial institutions via USDT stablecoin (approximate start date per indictment).
DOJ Office of Public Affairs2024-09-01
Gugnin is profiled by the Wall Street Journal in an article on wealthy renters, identified as paying $19,000 per month for a Manhattan apartment.
Finance Magnates2025-01-31
Alleged scheme ends: the indictment's stated period of criminal activity concludes (approximate end date per indictment).
DOJ Office of Public Affairs2025-06-09
22-count federal indictment against Iurii Gugnin is unsealed in the Eastern District of New York. Gugnin is arrested and arraigned before U.S. Magistrate Judge Taryn A. Merkl; he is ordered detained without bail pending trial.
DOJ EDNY and DOJ Office of Public Affairs2025-06-09
IRS-CI and the FBI New York field office are identified as the lead investigative agencies in the DOJ press release.
IRS-CI2025-06-10
OCCRP, CNBC, Decrypt, CoinTelegraph, Meduza, and other major outlets publish coverage of the charges.
OCCRPDecision Log
- hash: CHmuBV5tj2WWzVj56336mm7PdgRCStRAddRfb7CC32Xi
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 6/17/2026, 11:12:59 PM
last updated: 6/17/2026, 11:13:07 PM
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