Just four months prior to their penalty for the operation of a $ 577 million cryptocurrency-mining Ponzi scheme, the two Estonian founders of Hashflare seemedly mistakenly ordered to self-refill of the US Ministry of Homemade Security (DHS) -A Instruction Directly opposed a Court of Justice to Men to Stay in Wash convicted in August.
In a joint letter to court last week, lawyers for Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turogin District Judge Robert Lasnik in the western district of Washington told that both men had received “disturbing communication” from DHS who ordered them to leave the country immediately.
“It’s time for you to leave the United States,” read an E email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11. “DHS ends your probation relief. Don’t try to remain in the United States – the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”
The e email included in the letter filed last week threatened men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines and sanctions and all other legal options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It is similar to E emails that both undocumented immigrants and US citizens have received over the past few days.
Ironically, Potapenko and Turogin are not in the United States of their own will-they were extradited from their original Estonia at the request of the US Ministry of Justice in 2022 on an 18-count indictment tied to their hashflare scheme. Although they initially did not plead guilty to all charges, in February they invoked both guilty of a count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which has a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and agreed to be forfeited over $ 400 million in assets. They have both been in the Seattle area on Bond since last July.
“Although there is nothing, Ivan and Sergei want more than immediately go home, they understood that they are also under judgment to remain in King County,” wrote Mark Bini, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and the main adviser for Potenko, wrote in the couple’s joint letter to the court. Bini did not respond to Coindesk’s request for comment.
In his letter, Bini said that DHS’s E emails had caused both Potapenko and Turogin “Significant Anxiety.”
“We and our clients have all seen the latest news. Immigration authorities are making mistakes, and individuals who should not be in custody end up in custody, sometimes even deported to places where they were not to be deported,” Bini wrote.
Six days after Bini’s letter to the judge, DOJ filed his own letter to the Court and said prosecutors had coordinated with DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department and secured a long -standing postponement to the self -defeating order.
“This should give plenty of time for the criminal offense to take place,” said the prosecutor’s letter.
DHS did not respond to Coindesk’s request for comment.
Potapenko and Turogin are intended to be convicted on August 14 in Seattle. Their lawyers have said that they will request to be sentenced to sentenced time, which means that there is no extra time in prison and being sent home to Estonia “immediately.”
