A Russian legislator who was one of the authors of the bill to legalize cryptocurrency mining in the country has been tied to a local over-the-counter (OTC) exchange known as Bankoff.
Russian opposition activist Mikhail Khodorkovsky linked Bankoff OTC to lawmaker Andrei Lugovoi in an article of London-based investigative project Dossier Center on Dec. 19.
The 6,000-word article was accompanied by a video titled “Crypto-Kremlin: How the authorities launder Bitcoin,” released on Khodorkovksy’s Live YouTube channel.
According to Dossier, Bankoff is the most active peer-to-peer trader using Russian rubles on the major global crypto exchange Binance. As previously reported, Binance continued to serve non-sanctioned Russians despite the European Union banning all crypto transactions for Russia in October. The Bankoff OTC platform accepts only cash from customers and has almost no Anti-Money Laundering or Know Your Customer controls.
Как думаете, кто может контролировать криптообменник, который приносит миллионы долларов в год? Естественно, тот, кто сидит в Госдуме и занимается регулированием крипты. В треде — всё самое важное о новом расследовании.https://t.co/ndd62kxy3n
— Центр «Досье» – право на справедливость (@dossier_center) December 19, 2022
The trader’s office is reportedly on the 65th floor of a building in the Moscow City skyscraper district. The premises belong to the Bratsk Electricity Network, a company that distributes electricity around the east-central Russian city of Bratsk, which is a center of cryptocurrency mining.
According to Dossier, Bankoff could make up to $20,000 daily on up to 4% in commissions on users’ crypto transactions. Lugovoi’s wife Ksenia Lugovaya has reportedly also owned a share in Bratsk Electricity Network since 2018. A declaration filed by her husband and purportedly shown in the Dossier video indicates that Lugovaya had an income of 29.6 million rubles, or a little more than $400,000, in 2021 with no sources of income other than the Bratsk electric company.
The Dossier article and video also describe how a representative of Dossier was allegedly able to convert 100,000 rubles ($1,400) in Tether (USDT) using the sanctioned Russian crypto exchange Garantex. The representative was reportedly able to send…
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