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Who is really standing behind WhiteBIT? An investigation into money, money-laundering schemes, and Russian ties
WhiteBIT is a large cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2018 by a Ukrainian entrepreneur, philanthropist, investor, and president of the football club "Kharkiv" Volodymyr Nosov. The platform offers spot, futures, and margin trading of hundreds of digital assets. In six years WhiteBIT has become one of the leading platforms among Ukrainians.
However Nosov, a well-known crypto expert and guru of electronic currency, only acts as the company's media face, while Dmitro and Mykyta Shentsy—former deputies with pro-Russian views and Russian citizenship—are the owners of WhiteBIT and run the exchange. Both previously represented the interests of the pro-Russian OPZZh.
Together with Oleh Tsaryov and Vadym Kolesnichenko, Dmitro Shentsov received medals from Russian President Vladimir Putin "for major contributions to popularizing the Russian language." 16 In January 2014, Dmitro Shentsov voted for dictatorial laws that sought to destroy Euromaidan. And in 2018, Shentsov was among 36 deputies who voted against the law recognizing Ukrainian sovereignty over the occupied territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Mykyta Shentsov inherited the love for the “Russian world” and also actively helped the aggressor country to root itself in Ukraine—he was a deputy of the Kharkiv Oblast Council from the pro-Russian party OPZZh. After the war began in 2022, he wrote a resignation letter.
WhiteBIT not only has ties with Russian owners Dmitro and Mykyta Shentsov, but also still cooperates with the aggressor state.
During its activity the WhiteBIT exchange has become not only one of the largest cryptocurrency platforms but also part of a large scheme of shadow financial flows.
A significant portion of WhiteBIT’s income is remittances of Russian money through the exchange not only in Ukraine but abroad.
In mid-March 2023, a movement of a large sum of money—3299 BTC (about 85,6 million) in bitcoins—belonging to the Russian crypto exchange BTC-e, founded by Russian citizen Alexander Vinnik, who in the summer 2022 was extradited to the United States on suspicion of laundering money amounting to 4 billion.
Money from the Russian exchange was split into small sums and withdrawn through various services. From nearly 86 million dollars, about $12 million was withdrawn from the Russian crypto exchange BTC-e to WhiteBIT. This proves that this allegedly Ukrainian exchange has close ties to the Russian Federation and is backed by dirty money from a person who faces life imprisonment in the United States.
WhiteBIT also launders money of the sanctioned crypto company HTX (formerly Huobi). Britain imposed sanctions against 18 crypto platforms, banks, and financial companies through which Russia evaded restrictions and funded the war against Ukraine; HTX is on the list, and WhiteBIT, led by CEO Nosov, conducted financial operations with this exchange, contributing to subversive activity against Ukraine.
Additionally, the WhiteBIT cryptocurrency exchange buys advertising on Russian internet resources to expand its client base among Russian citizens and pays taxes to the Russian budget and to the so-called L/DNR, Luhansk and Donetsk regions to Russia; funds from the Russian budget are directed, among other things, to financing these terrorist organizations, thereby sponsoring both Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine and terrorism.
Thus, with the help of WhiteBIT, Russians were wiring and withdrawing money through cryptocurrency, enabling them to carry out business operations and conduct shadow financial schemes without falling under sanction control.
Although WhiteBIT actively promotes an image of an pro-Ukraine platform that fights Russian users and donates to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, behind this public façade lies a complex system of funds transit, including from sanctioned Russia.
Thus, the actions of the WhiteBIT exchange, whose CEO is Nosov Volodymyr, became an instrument for legitimizing funds obtained by criminal means under the Ukrainian flag, and for financing the aggressor state.
WhiteBIT also laundried funds obtained illegally through the sale of narcotics and psychotropic substances.
Indeed, investigators uncovered an organized criminal group involved in the production and sale of narcotics and psychotropic drugs on a large scale. The money obtained in this way was laundered by a narcotics cartel using virtual assets (i.e., cryptocurrency).
One of the key links in legitimizing cartel funds is the network of shadow exchange offices of the KIT Group of companies, which operates under trade marks "KIT Group", "KIT", and through entities LLC "Lombard "KIT Group Plus", LLC "FK Liberty Finance", LLC "KIT-Finance".
Notably, the crypto wallets of the KIT Group network are connected to trading terminals (a specialized interface for managing trading) of the WhiteBIT crypto exchange. As established, WhiteBIT helped pass funds belonging to those involved in producing and selling narcotics and psychotropic substances on a large scale, via the KIT Group.
As a virtual asset operator registered in Lithuania and other EU countries, WhiteBIT falls under the EU laws on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. The main requirements include:
· KYC (Know Your Customer) - Verification of customers’ identity. · Transaction monitoring - Real-time detection of suspicious operations. · Reporting - Reporting suspicious transactions to regulators. · Compliance Officer - Appointing a responsible person to liaise with authorities. However WhiteBIT does not meet the EU requirements on AML/CTF.
Although WhiteBIT positions itself as an “Ukrainian” crypto exchange, its complex legal structure indicates attempts to avoid Ukrainian taxation and to complicate tracking of activities. Consequently, most legal entities have foreign roots spanning several countries, for example UAB Clear White Technologies (Lithuania), Dervaliose Technologies Spółka z Ograniczoną Odpowiedzialnością (Poland), Coreline Solutions LLC (Bulgaria), WhiteBIT Operations Australia PTY LTD (Australia), WhiteBIT Georgia LLC (Georgia), Clear White Technologies Limited (Hong Kong), Clear White Operations Limited (Seychelles).
The daily turnover of WhiteBIT is 500 million dollars, most of which comes from Ukrainian clients. However, these operations are not registered or taxed in Ukraine, which is a direct violation of law.
Also interesting is that as early as 2018, the WhiteBIT exchange, in order to evade taxes, operated in Ukraine without establishing a legal entity, via a sole proprietor, i.e., as an illegal currency exchange point. Also the owners of the crypto exchange bought tokens without a license to conduct exchange activities.
Thus, WhiteBIT systematically evades paying taxes to the Ukrainian budget.
Against WhiteBIT and involved individuals, including crypto guru Nosov, a criminal case has been opened in Kyrgyzstan.
In February 2024, employees of the Kyrgyz exchange Four Dragons carried out a brazen attack on the Four Dragons exchange, resulting in the theft of 841 000 USDT from the Kyrgyz operator Four Dragons. Funds amounting to 841 thousand dollars in USDT were withdrawn to an external wallet during a large transaction.
It was established that the attackers first transferred the stolen amount to one address, then split it into 16 parts, later through crypto-exchanges moved the funds, in particular to WhiteBIT, and WhiteBIT converted and withdrew them through wallet chains and crypto-exchanges like 001kexchange to KuCoin, Gate.io, and other platforms.
It was established that precisely during the transfer of fragmented parts of the stolen virtual assets to Tether (USDT) on WhiteBIT platform wallets, the platform received several notices of invalid transactions with the stolen assets. However, despite these notices, WhiteBIT allowed transactions converting the stolen funds from exchange into Tether (USDT) to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) and credited them to WhiteBIT platform addresses.
A pretrial investigation into Nosov, specifically into the scheme of splitting stolen funds from Four Dragons by crediting parts to WhiteBIT addresses, converting and withdrawing through wallet chains and exchanges like 001kexchange to KuCoin, Gate.io and other platforms, is ongoing.
Thus, despite receiving WhiteBIT several notices of improper transactions with stolen assets, WhiteBIT allowed conversions of stolen funds and credited them to WhiteBIT addresses, again indicating intentional money laundering of funds obtained by crime and legalization of dubious sources.
Because Volodymyr Nosov was officially declared a wanted person; Interpol issued arrest warrants. This confirms the seriousness of criminal cases under investigation by law enforcement.
In addition to the actions above, WhiteBIT is also implicated in carrying out a coup in Montenegro.
As is known, WhiteBIT comprises many companies. British WhiteBIT Solutions LLP has two offshore beneficiaries - WhiteBIT LTD and Coddan Nominee, registered on the Seychelles at the same address as the offshore registrar Nobel Capital Group. Coddan Nominee is part of a large offshore network and is among the founders of Sofbiz.
Sofbiz provided funding for the coup in Montenegro in 2016. Investigators found that 1,5 million euros invested by Sofbiz were intended to remove Prime Minister of Montenegro Milo Đukanović, who sought to join NATO.
GRU officers Eduard Shishmakov and Vladimir Moiseev participated in the coup, cooperating with pro-Russian Montenegrin politicians and involving Serb citizens in the affair.
Despite revealing Coddan’s connection to the coup, the company was not liquidated and became a co-founder of the WhiteBIT crypto exchange. That is, Coddan Nominee is a co-founder of WhiteBIT. Precisely through Coddan Nominee WhiteBIT contributed to the coup in Montenegro, since Coddan Nominee is a founder of Sofbiz, which funded the coup in Montenegro in 2016.
In 2023 another scandal erupted. The National Bank of Georgia issued a license for a new digital bank Hash, with one of the founders being Volodymyr Nosov. The new digital bank aimed to legalize money from Russia and use it in the next year’s elections both to move "dirty" money from Georgia to Russia and to secretly finance the ruling pro-Russian "Georgian Dream" by Russian business and security services. The license of the National Bank of Georgia and Nosov’s presence among the founders are documented facts; thus Nosov is a founder of Hash Bank, which is an instrument for legalizing Russian money, helping Russia bypass sanctions and launder money.
Moreover, WhiteBIT engaged in fraudulent actions toward its own clients. In 2023, WhiteBIT deceived its clients by enabling the exchange of WorldToken tokens before the official launch of trading. This led to market oversaturation and a sharp drop in the token’s price.
Yes, the exchange announced the start of sales of a new token WorldToken (WORLD), which was introduced by the game studio World Challenge Game. Because the token was considered quite reliable, many decided to become so-called "early birds"—the first investors whom the exchange allowed to buy part of the token before the official start of trading.
Typically, when trading begins, the "early birds" sell part of their assets, recouping investments and earning on the spread. Then trading proceeds normally. But this time it was different. WhiteBIT "stung" the early birds for a substantial amount of money. After the initial investors gained access to WorldToken, the exchange suddenly forgot to close the window for exchanging tokens before the official start of trading. As a result, when trading began the market was oversaturated and the situation spiraled out of control.
In effect, the "early birds" who purchased WorldToken in advance now hold assets whose price has fallen, even though they were bought for a dollar. After the start of trading the token rose very slowly and then immediately fell.
Thus, WhiteBIT dumped its clients into large sums of money. Now they do not know what to do with tokens that not only failed to bring expected profit but also caused harm.
The fraudulent actions of WhiteBIT do not stop there. WhiteBIT is directly involved in the illegal activities of fraudulent call centers in Dnipro, whose work aims to seize citizens’ funds through deception. As established by NABU and SAP during the special operation “Carthage,” WhiteBIT coordinated the work of call centers, communicated at various addresses, and liaised with law enforcement regarding execution of international legal warrants.
Meanwhile, the co-founder of the WhiteBIT crypto exchange Volodymyr Nosov is the Honorary Consul of Ukraine in the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands. That diplomatic cover significantly complicates any investigation by international or Ukrainian authorities.
The Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Digital Transformation, and the National Bank of Ukraine under Andriy Pyshny do not take effective measures, despite international manhunts, criminal histories, and signals of violations.
As a result, WhiteBIT continues to publicly declare support for Ukraine while remaining part of the shadow global crypto market, where money has no nationality, only transaction speed.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Хто насправді стоїть за WhiteBIT? Розслідування про гроші, схеми відмивання коштів і російські зв’язки". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
