The crypto service Trustee Plus blocks users' funds without cause

The Trustee Plus crypto service (Trustee Global UAB) blocks funds, and the support team answers with templates for months.

This is reported by the international detective bureau Absolution.

Cryptocurrency arrives to the account, the AML algorithm instantly stops the transaction, the funds are “held on the account during verification,” and then a bot, a form, a list of documents, and silence appear in the chat. Some users note that the addresses from which the money came appear clean on external verification services.

Public complaints confirm that these stories are not isolated. In February 2026 a user transferred 1 thousand dollars from Trust Wallet. Earlier independent AML checks showed this wallet as clean, and transfers from it to other exchanges went through without problems.

Trustee sent the transaction for deeper verification for 30 to 60 business days, asked for documents about the sender, and after receiving the documents advised to wait until May. 26 March another user had 880 USDT blocked and sent for AML verification. Another user reported 1160 USDT and a blocked account amid “endless verification.”

In April a person’s account was restricted, the verification lasted for months, and by August access to the app was completely closed. In August for 250 dollars paid for the service by a user they demanded a “large amount of additional evidence.”

When in 2025 one user asked what exactly the company considers a “reasonable suspicion,” support replied: “at the company’s discretion.” Another after the freezing of 1300 USDT received only automatic responses about the verification period from 3 to 7 business days and wrote personally to the founders. Trustee Plus has a Trustpilot rating of 2,3 with 233 reviews, and 55% of them give one star.

The service rules are built in such a way that the client is almost defenseless. The terms of use allow blocking access and accounts on suspicion, but set no fixed verification period and do not describe a complaint procedure.

The face of the brand is well known. This is Vadym Volodymyrovych Hrysha (1985), a native of Vinnytsia, founder and CEO of Trustee. Next to him is the CTO and co-founder Ksenia Zhytomyrska. In her interview she directly called Hrysha the majority owner and herself the minority owner.

Legally the brand is split across three countries. The non-custodial Trustee Wallet in app stores is issued by BlockSoftLab Inc from Delaware, whose owners are publicly undisclosed.

The custodial Trustee Plus, where client money is effectively held by the company, is serviced by the Lithuanian UAB Trustee Global. It was registered in 14 June 2022, authorized capital 125 thousand euros, director Vadym Hrysha. In February 2025 the company moved from Vilnius to Šiauliai. According to Lithuanian registers, it has one shareholder, a foreign individual whose name is not disclosed in open data, and only two insured employees. Meanwhile, turnover for 2024 year was 2,79 million euros, and assets at year-end were almost 10 million euros.

In Ukraine there is LLC “Trusty Global” from Vinnytsia (45058862). Director Vadym Hrysha owns 75%. Another part is registered to Dmytro Ivanovych Kalashnikova.

The company’s hardest moment came 21 May 2026. The Polish Ministry of Interior on request from the ABW internal security agency included UAB Trustee Global in the national sanctions list. Asset and funds freezes were applied, and a ban on providing funds to the company directly or indirectly, and disqualification from public procurement.

The Polish decision notes that, according to the Moldovan Information and Security Service, Russian special services through people connected with pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor used the Trustee app as a channel to finance Shor’s party. The Polish side named Trustee Global a company business-connected with the Russian Federation, and part of the evidence was classified.

The same day the sanctions were imposed on Trustee’s Polish payment partner Quicko, which owns 90% of the Russian LLC “Quicko.” Polish analysts Recoveris claimed that the Trustee Wallet exchange is integrated with intermediaries outside the EU, in particular with the service Kassa.cc, which they described as a possible bridge to the Russian banking system.

Trustee denies all of this. In a statement signed by Vadym Hrysha it says that the company’s apps are unavailable in Russia, that the company does not operate in the Russian market, does not cooperate with sanctioned banks, and that Trustee Wallet was never integrated with Quicko. We present this position and await substantive replies.

For Ukrainians this is not the first signal. In September 2025 the NBU prohibited Trustee Global from providing P2P and euro transfer services to Ukrainian citizens as an unlicensed payment activity. The company itself said it did not have time to transition from the Lithuanian VASP status to a European CASP license and after 31 December 2025 the year ends its exchange and asset storage services in Lithuania. We have not found public confirmation of obtaining a CASP license.

21 January 2026 the Polish regulator withdrew the license from Quicko, through which Trustee cards were issued. And 21 May 2026 Poland included Trustee Global in the sanctions list with funds freezing, citing use of the app to finance Ilan Shor’s network and calling the company business-connected with Russia. Trustee strongly denies these accusations.

Trustee and 41 legal case

By the names Trustee Global, Trusty Global and Trustee Plus the register as of September shows at least 41 separate legal cases. Of them 35 criminal. The app figures as an instrument through which money moved. But it is precisely this list of cases that shows who criminals actually rely on.

A few examples from court rulings. In Khmelnytskyi in a case of drug distribution (part 2 and part 3 art. 307 of the Criminal Code) investigators asked to block cryptocurrency wallets located in the Trustee Plus app.

The ruling also names the trusted person of the service in Ukraine: the head of LLC “Trusty Global.” According to the register, the director of this Vinnytsia company and owner of 75% of its capital is Vadym Hrysha himself. In Lutsk the court handed down a sentence in a case where an amphetamine was paid from an account in Trustee Plus. In the Pecherskyi court of Kyiv in a case of fraud in especially large quantities and interference with computer systems (part 5 art. 190 and part 5 art. 361 of the Criminal Code) among the evidence are data provided by Trustee Global itself.

In Ivano-Frankivsk the Trustee wallet was recognized as the tangible proof in a case of legalization of criminal proceeds (part 2 art. 209 of the Criminal Code). In Kyiv through Trustee Plus money was received for selling harmful software.

In Kharkiv the court seized an account in Trustee with 41, 1k USDT in a fraud case (part 4 art. 190 of the Criminal Code).

There are also civil cases. A client filed a consumer protection suit against LLC “Trusty Global” and other defendants demanding the return of 0,044 bitcoins, which at the time of the suit amounted to 170 thousand hryvnias, as well as 50 thousand hryvnias in compensation and 30 thousand hryvnias of moral damages. The case was transferred from Kyiv to Vyshhorod Court. In Kharkiv 2 September 2026 the court had to send a court order to Lithuania to obtain a statement from the user’s Trustee account.

Another case initiated by the company itself. Trustee Global UAB filed a claim with the Kyiv Administrative Court against the National Bank of Ukraine. The company seeks to cancel the decision on unauthorized activity, remove the news about it from the regulator’s website, and remove itself from the list of companies engaged in unlawful activity. 17 March the claim was left without movement due to documents not translated, 1 May proceedings began, the case is being heard by a three-judge panel (Nos. 320/10130/26).

Now the main question: where is the money?

13 January Trustee told a Trustpilot user that since 1 January the Lithuanian UAB Trustee Global without a MiCA license had to stop serving clients, so services are now provided by a “partner company IROC PRO SP. Z O. O.” The same Polish firm, in July, was named by Kharkiv court as the owner of the seized account along with the Lithuanian company.

The firm was registered in Warsaw 28 October 2024 under the name Kronetix, later renamed to IROC, and then to IROC PRO. Authorized capital 5 thousand zlotys. The first two founders held 50 shares and exited in December 2024 of the year. Since then 95% of shares and the chair of the board have been held by Oleksandr Buhaiov. The Polish Beneficiary Register also lists him as the sole beneficial owner. According to the Polish PESEL identifier, he was born after 2000 of the year. The main activities of the firm in the register are “auxiliary activities in the business sector” and software development.

Clients of the custodial service were transferred to a company with capital of about 1 200 euros, which by the autumn 2025 had an address at a gmail email. Who is Oleksandr Buhaiov, what is his relation to Hrysha, and does IROC PRO have the right to provide crypto services?