The U.S. Supreme Court （Supreme Court Chief Justice）

A Hawaii woman pleaded guilty yesterday to defrauding her mortgage lender and conspiring to defraud the IRS by fraudulently obtaining a tax refund and then thwarting the IRS’ efforts to recoup it.

The following is according to court documents and statements made in court: Hannah Heart, of Honolulu, conspired with others to file a false 2014 individual income tax return in her name. As part of the conspiracy, Heart’s co-conspirators created a fake tax form purportedly issued by a mortgage lender to Heart, which she attached to her return. The form falsely reported that Heart had received income from a financial institution of more than $2.4 million, from which over $1.2 million in taxes had been withheld. As a result, Heart filed a tax return that falsely claimed she was entitled to a $464,904 refund, which the IRS paid.

When the IRS began trying to collect the fraudulent refund from Heart, she took several steps to thwart the IRS. For example, Heart deposited the refund check into a trust bank account and immediately transferred most of the balance to a separate bank account, both of which she controlled. She also sent numerous false, fraudulent, and frivolous letters to the IRS in response to IRS communications.

In addition, Heart helped another co-conspirator defraud the IRS using the same scheme. Heart and her co-conspirator deposited a second fraudulently obtained $1 million refund check from the IRS, payable to the co-conspirator.

In total, Heart caused a tax loss to the IRS of $1,618,985.54.

Heart also defrauded her mortgage lender, conspiring with others to do so. Heart took out a mortgage for her home in 2006 and stopped making payments in 2010 toward her mortgage. The mortgage lender initiated foreclosure proceedings in 2022 against Heart. In response, a co-conspirator sent the lender a fictitious document purporting to be a check for the full amount due for Heart’s mortgage. The lender initially accepted the check but later rejected it as fraudulent. Afterwards, Heart sent mail to the lender demanding that it accept the fraudulent check as full payment of her remaining balance.

In total, Heart intended to defraud the mortgage lender of $2,066,522.22.

Heart will be sentenced at a later date. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the charge of mail fraud and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for the charge of conspiracy to defraud the IRS. She also faces a period of supervised release, restitution, and monetary penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

A 22-count indictment was unsealed today charging Iurii Gugnin, also known as Iurii Mashukov and George Goognin, 38, a resident of New York and citizen of Russia, with various offenses related to using his cryptocurrency company Evita to funnel more than $500 million of overseas payments through U.S. banks and cryptocurrency exchanges while hiding the source and purpose of the transactions.

According to court documents, Gugnin is charged with wire and bank fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), operating an unlicensed money transmitting business, failing to implement an effective anti-money laundering compliance program, failing to file suspicious activity reports, money laundering, and related conspiracy charges. Gugnin was arrested and arraigned today in New York.

“The defendant is charged with turning a cryptocurrency company into a covert pipeline for dirty money, moving over half a billion dollars through the U.S. financial system to aid sanctioned Russian banks and help Russian end-users acquire sensitive U.S. technology,” said John A. Eisenberg, Assistant Attorney General for National Security. “The Department of Justice will not hesitate to bring to justice those who imperil our national security by enabling our foreign adversaries to sidestep sanctions and export controls.”

“As alleged, Gugnin came to the United States and set up a money laundering operation under the guise of a cryptocurrency start-up, which he then used to evade sanctions and export controls and defraud U.S. financial institutions,” said U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. for the Eastern District of New York. “Today’s arrest demonstrates that this Office will vigorously prosecute those who abuse the U.S. financial system in furtherance of criminal activity, particularly when it undermines national security.”

“Gugnin’s cryptocurrency company allegedly served as a front to launder hundreds of millions of dollars for sanctioned Russian entities and to obtain export-controlled technology for the Russian government,” said Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “Let this serve notice that using cryptocurrency to hide illegal conduct will not prevent the FBI and our partners from holding you accountable.”

As alleged in the indictment, Gugnin is the founder, President, Treasurer, and Compliance Officer of U.S-based Evita Investments Inc. (Evita Investments) and Evita Pay Inc. (Evita Pay) (collectively, Evita). Gugnin used both companies to enable foreign customers — many of whom held funds at sanctioned Russian banks — to provide him with cryptocurrency, which he then laundered through cryptocurrency wallets and U.S. bank accounts. Gugnin ultimately converted the funds into U.S. dollars or other fiat currencies and then made payments through bank accounts in Manhattan on behalf of his foreign customers. In the process, the sources of the funds were obscured, disguising the audit trail and hiding the true counterparties to the transactions. Between June 2023 and January 2025, Gugnin used Evita to facilitate the movement of approximately $530 million through the U.S. financial system, most of which he received in the form of a cryptocurrency stablecoin known as Tether, or “USDT.”

To effectuate the scheme, Gugnin defrauded various banks and cryptocurrency exchanges through which he converted funds and made wire transfers. Gugnin repeatedly lied to these banks and exchanges, telling them that Evita did not conduct business with entities in Russia and did not deal with sanctioned entities. In fact, many of Gugnin’s customers were located in Russia, and he facilitated payments in funds held at sanctioned Russian banks, including PJSC Sberbank, PJSC Sovcombank, PJSC VTB Bank, and JSC Tinkoff Bank. Gugnin maintained personal accounts at two sanctioned Russian banks, JSC Alfa-Bank and PJSC Sberbank, with which he transacted while residing in the United States. Gugnin also facilitated payments by foreign customers to procure sensitive electronics, including an export-controlled server designed by a U.S. technology company, and laundered funds from a Moscow-based supplier to purchase parts for Rosatom, Russia’s state-owned nuclear technology company. To conceal his activities, Gugnin regularly obfuscated invoices by digitally “whiting out” the names and addresses of his Russian customers.

Gugnin also failed to implement Evita’s own purported anti-money laundering program and failed to file suspicious activity reports, as required under the Bank Secrecy Act. Although Gugnin represented to banks and cryptocurrency exchanges that Evita followed rigorous anti-money laundering and know-your-customer requirements, in practice he flouted those requirements, as well as the requirement to file reports of suspicious activities with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Gugnin ultimately registered Evita Pay as a money transmitter with FinCEN and the state of Florida but did so by making materially false statements to the state of Florida about Evita Pay’s business. Gugnin used that fraudulently obtained state license to induce a cryptocurrency exchange to process transactions on his behalf.

In the course of his scheme, Gugnin conducted web searches that confirmed his awareness that he was breaking the law, including searches for “how to know if there is an investigation against you”; “evita investments inc. criminal records search”; “Iurii Gugnin criminal records”; “money laundering penalties US”; and “penalties for sanctions violations EU luxury goods.” He also visited website pages titled, respectively “am I being investigated?”; “signs you may be under criminal investigation”; and “what are the best ways to find out if you’re being investigated and what can someone do when they think they might be under investigation.”

If convicted, Gugnin faces a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison for each count of bank fraud; a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each of the wire fraud, IEEPA, money laundering, and related conspiracy counts; a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for failure to implement an effective anti-money laundering program and failure to file suspicious activity reports; and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Skurnik for the Eastern District of New York and Trial Attorney Dallas Kaplan of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Mantell for the Eastern District of New York’s Asset Recovery Section is handling forfeiture matters.