Since 2021, five cryptocurrency exchanges have been sanctioned while operating from Federation Tower East in Moscow — a single skyscraper on the Moscow River that has become the de facto headquarters of Russia's crypto laundering infrastructure. Each time an exchange was designated, a successor appeared in the same building, inheriting staff, infrastructure, and clients. The pattern has repeated without interruption.
This investigation traces the building's offshore ownership layer, the succession pattern among its sanctioned tenants, and the network of shell companies and intermediaries that connect them. It draws on corporate registrations from six jurisdictions, leaked offshore records, blockchain transaction data, UK and US sanctions designations, and Russian-language press reporting.
The UK designated ABCeX on May 26, 2026 — after this investigation was substantially complete — validating the building-as-infrastructure thesis at the core of this series. But the designation also revealed an enforcement gap: AEXBit, a sixth exchange operating from the same address, remains undesignated despite matching the same operational pattern.
Key Original Findings
- Trotsenko-LCS connection: The building's owner, Roman Trotsenko, was a direct client of Legal Consulting Services Limited (LCS), the same offshore intermediary that administered shell companies for sanctioned industrialists and shadow fleet vessels.
- 2,014 entities administered by LCS: Cross-referencing leaked records against public databases revealed LCS administered 2,014 entities — versus only 57 visible on the ICIJ web interface — exposing the scale of the intermediary network.
- Kunitsa US footprint: Sergey Kunitsa, identified as a sanctions agent facilitating exchange operations, holds a California contractor's license and Florida property — a previously unreported Western footprint for a key network participant.
- AEXBit not designated: A sixth exchange operating from Federation Tower East matches the same operational pattern as the five sanctioned predecessors but remains undesignated, representing a clear enforcement gap.
- Building-as-infrastructure thesis validated: The May 26, 2026 UK sanctions against ABCeX confirmed that Federation Tower East functions not merely as an address but as persistent enabling infrastructure for sanctioned crypto operations.