A Russian national residing in Buford is sentenced to nearly 4 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in February to conducting an unlicensed money transmitting business.
U.S. District Attorney Ryan Buchanan's office says 43-year old Feliks Medvedev of Buford was sentenced Wednesday, October 2 by U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash, Jr. to three years, 10 months in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Medvedev was convicted of the charges on February 7, 2024, after he pleaded guilty.
Buchanan's press release indicated that Medvedev registered eight companies in the Buford and Dacula areas that were used to transmit more than $150 million in over 1,300 transactions. The companies were purportedly headquartered in Buford and Dacula, but they did not have typical business expenses or employees. The money was used, in part, to purchase over $65 million in overseas gold bullion. Medvedev transferred millions of dollars overseas from multiple bank accounts in the United States, according to federal prosecutors.
As part of the conspiracy, Medvedev reportedly worked with a Russian company and was directed by multiple Russian nationals at that company to make illegal transfers of funds. Subsequent to Medvedev’s indictment, on September 14, 2023, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, acting pursuant to Executive Order 14024, sanctioned two of Medvedev’s alleged co-conspirators: Russian national Alexey Chubarov and his company KSK Group. Earlier this year, on February 13, 2024, Chubarov, KSK Group, and Russian national Lev Solyannikov were separately indicted in the Northern District of Georgia for conspiring with Medvedev.
The case was coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export controls and economic countermeasures that the United States, along with its foreign allies and partners, has imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine.
