FBI Seizes Crypto Exchange Used to Launder Over $70 Million from Ransomware Attacks
U.S. prosecutors indicted Mykhalio Petrovich Chudnovets, a Russian national, for running the online laundering service E-Note. He is charged with one count of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, with the indictment unsealed on December 17, 2025.
Federal authorities have seized E-Note’s infrastructure, including servers, mobile apps, and websites such as e-note.com, e-note.ws, and jab b.mn. This operation was coordinated with international partners.
E-Note is alleged to have laundered over $70 million in illicit proceeds linked to ransomware, account takeovers, and other cybercrimes since 2017. Chudnovets is said to have started offering laundering services as early as 2010 and later formalized them through E-Note around 2017, enabling international transfer of criminal proceeds and conversion of cryptocurrency to fiat currency.
This takedown is part of a broader U.S. crackdown on crypto-enabled crime. Other recent actions include a Florida crypto seizure of approximately $1.5 million, charges against a Ukrainian national involved in pro-Russia cyberattacks, and a guilty plea from a California man in a RICO crypto theft case involving over $263 million.
According to Chainalysis, $3.4 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen globally in the current year, with North Korea-linked actors accounting for about 59% of these losses. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) reported around 3,200 crypto investment fraud complaints per month earlier this year.
The U.S. authorities from the Eastern District of Michigan stated that the operation targeted a network used by transnational cybercriminal groups, including those attacking U.S. healthcare and critical infrastructure.
