PANews reported on February 27 that according to CoinDesk, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that Gotbit founder, 26-year-old Russian citizen Aleksei Andriunin, has been extradited from Portugal to the United States and faces charges of market manipulation and wire fraud, with a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison.

Andriunin was arrested in Portugal in October 2024 and indicted by a Boston grand jury. The indictment alleges that between 2018 and 2024, Gotbit provided "market manipulation services" to crypto businesses, helping clients, including U.S. companies, inflate token trading volumes to drive up prices.

The Justice Department documents show that Gotbit made tens of millions of dollars from the business, and Andriunin personally transferred millions of dollars into his Binance account. He made his first court appearance in Boston on Tuesday, and a subsequent trial date has not yet been set.