Florida Steel Trader Cops Sanction Plea

One of the two Florida men arrested this Spring in a scheme to launder funds for the fugitive "Gas King of Ukraine," through a Florida metals service center has entered a guilty plea.

Sergey Karpushkin, a Belarusian citizen from Miami, was indicted and arrested for engaging in a $150 million scheme to violate U.S. sanctions against Russian oligarch Sergey Kurchenko and his two companies.

Karpushkins plea acknowledged violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act ("IEEPA"), 50 U.S.C. § 1705; and other money laundering charges.

Karpushkin and His Company, Cogentra USA, Received $4,723,625 in Proceeds from the Offense, which included generating false and misleading certificates for sanctioned goods expropriated from Russian-occupied Ukraine that would suggest that the goods, in fact, originated in Russia.

Kurchenko was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2015 for his role in misappropriating Ukrainian state assets. His companies, Kompaniya Gaz-Alyans and ZAO Vneshtorgservis, were designated by OFAC in 2018 for providing material support to the separatist-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine.