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Frozen funds, Polish sanctions, and a criminal trail: what problems users face with Vadym Hrushha’s Trustee Plus platform
The crypto service Trustee Plus (Trustee Global UAB) freezes clients' funds, and tech support sends only template responses for months.
Cryptocurrency arrives in the wallet, the AML system immediately blocks the transaction, the funds are “held pending review,” after which a bot appears in the chat, a form for documents is provided, and then long silence. Some users emphasize that the sender addresses underwent independent AML checks and were declared clean.
Public complaints indicate these cases are not isolated. In February 2026 a user transferred 1 thousand dollars from Trust Wallet. Previously this wallet had passed AML checks without comments and transfers to other exchanges proceeded without problems.
Trustee referred the transaction for enhanced review for 30–60 business days, requested documents on the source of funds, and after receiving them advised waiting until May. On 26 March another client had 880 USDT blocked and sent to AML review. Another user complained about the blocking of 1160 USDT and an “endless account verification.”
In April one client had access restricted, the review lasted months, and by August the app completely ceased working with the account. In August the user was asked for a “large package of additional evidence” for 250 dollars as “services.”
When in 2025 a year a client asked what the company considered a “reasonable suspicion,” support replied: “at the company’s discretion.” Another user, after 1300 USDT were frozen, only received automated messages about timelines of 3–7 business days and tried to contact the founders personally. On Trustpilot Trustee Plus’s rating is 2,3 out of 233 reviews, of which 55% are one star.
The service rules effectively leave the client defenseless. The terms of use allow blocking access and accounts on suspicion, but do not set maximum review periods and do not describe the appeals procedure.
The face of the brand is well known. This is Vadym Volodymyrovych Hrushha (1985 y.o.), native of Vinnytsia, founder and CEO of Trustee. Alongside him is CTO and co-founder Kseniia Zhytomyrska. In an interview she explicitly called Hrushha the majority owner and herself a minority owner.
Legally the brand is split across three countries. The noncustodial Trustee Wallet in app stores is published by BlockSoftLab Inc from Delaware, whose beneficiaries are not publicly disclosed.
The custodial Trustee Plus, where the company actually holds clients’ funds, is served by Lithuanian UAB Trustee Global. It was registered on 14 June 2022, with authorized capital of 125 thousand euros, director — Vadym Hrushha. In February 2025 the company moved from Vilnius to Šiauliai. According to Lithuanian registries, it has one shareholder — a foreign individual (name not disclosed) — and only two insured employees. At the same time turnover for 2024 year was 2,79 million euros, and year-end assets nearly 10 million euros.
In Ukraine there is LLC "Trasti Global" from Vinnytsia (code 45058862). Director — Vadym Hrushha, who owns 75% of the shares. The rest are registered to Dmytro Ivanovych Kalashnikov.
The company took its most serious hit on 21 May 2026. At the request of the Internal Security Agency ABW, Poland’s Minister of the Interior added UAB Trustee Global to the national sanctions list. Measures included freezing funds and economic resources, a ban on providing financing, and exclusion from public procurement.
The Polish decision states that, according to Moldova’s Information and Security Service, Russian intelligence used Trustee as a channel to finance Ilan Shor’s party through persons linked to the pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor. The Polish side called Trustee Global a company business-linked to Russia and classified part of the evidence as secret.
The same day the Polish payment company Quicko, of which 90% belongs to Russian LLC Kviko, was sanctioned. Recoveris analysts claimed that the exchange in Trustee Wallet is integrated with intermediaries outside the EU, including Kassa.cc, which they described as a possible bridge to the Russian banking system.
Trustee denies all this. In a statement signed by Vadym Hrushha it says the company’s apps are unavailable in Russia, the company does not operate in the Russian market, does not cooperate with sanctioned banks, and Trustee Wallet was never integrated with Quicko. We present this position and await substantive responses.
For Ukrainians this is not the first signal. In September 2025 the NBU prohibited Trustee Global from providing P2P services and euro transfers to Ukrainian citizens as unlicensed payment activity. The company itself reported that it did not have time to transition from the Lithuanian VASP status to the European CASP license and after 31 December 2025 it ceases exchange and custody services for virtual assets in Lithuania. Public confirmation of obtaining a CASP license has not yet appeared.
On 21 January 2026 the Polish regulator revoked Quicko’s license, through which Trustee cards were issued. And on 21 May 2026 Poland added Trustee Global to the sanctions list with asset freezes, citing use of the app to finance Ilan Shor’s network and calling the company business-linked to Russia. Trustee categorically denies these allegations.
Trustee and 41 court case
Under the names Trustee Global, Trasti Global and Trustee Plus the registry as of September records at least 41 separate court cases, of which 35 are criminal. The app appears as an instrument of fund movement. The list of these cases shows how wrongdoers actually use it.
A few examples from court rulings. In Khmelnytskyi, in a case about drug distribution (part 2 and part 3 of art. 307 of the Criminal Code) investigators requested blocking crypto wallets in Trustee Plus. The ruling mentions a trusted representative of the service in Ukraine — the head of LLC "Trasti Global." According to the registry, the director of the Vinnytsia company and owner of 75% of its capital is Vadym Hrushha. In Lutsk the court issued a verdict in a case where amphetamine was paid for from an account in Trustee Plus. In the Pecherskyi Court of Kyiv, in a case about large-scale fraud and interference with computer systems (part 5 of art. 190 and part 5 of art. 361 of the Criminal Code) among the evidence are data provided by "Trustee Global" itself.
In Ivano-Frankivsk a Trustee wallet was recognized as physical evidence in a case on legalization of criminal proceeds (part 2 of art. 209 of the Criminal Code). In Kyiv funds for the sale of malware were received via Trustee Plus. In Kharkiv the court froze a Trustee account with 41,1 thousand USDT in a fraud case (part 4 of art. 190 of the Criminal Code).
There are civil claims as well. A client filed a consumer protection lawsuit against LLC "Trasti Global" and other defendants demanding return of 0,044 bitcoin (at the time of the lawsuit — 170 thousand hryvnias), as well as 50 thousand hryvnias in compensation and 30 thousand hryvnias for moral damages. The case was transferred from Kyiv to Vyshhorod Court. In Kharkiv on 2 September 2026 the court sent a judicial request to Lithuania to obtain a user’s account statement from Trustee.
A separate case was initiated by the company itself. Trustee Global UAB filed a suit with the Kyiv District Administrative Court against the NBU. The company demands to cancel the decision on unlicensed activity, remove the news from the regulator’s website and remove itself from the list of companies conducting unlawful activity. On 17 March the suit was left without action due to documents without translation, on 1 May proceedings were opened, and the case is being heard by a panel of three judges (No. 320/10130/26).
Now the main question: where is the money?
On 13 January Trustee replied to a user on Trustpilot that since 1 January the Lithuanian UAB Trustee Global without a MiCA license ceased servicing clients, so services are now provided by “partner company IROC PRO SP. Z O. O.” The same Polish firm in July was named by a Kharkiv court as the owner of an arrested account alongside the Lithuanian company.
The firm was registered in Warsaw on 28 October 2024 under the name Kronetix, later renamed IROC, and then IROC PRO. Authorized capital — 5 thousand zlotys. The first two founders each had 50 shares and left already in December 2024. Since then 95% of shares and the position of chairman of the board have been held by Oleksandr Buhaiov. Poland’s Central Register of Beneficial Owners lists him as the sole beneficial owner. Based on the structure of the Polish identifier PESEL, he was born after 2000. The company’s main activity in the registry is “auxiliary business activities” and software development.
Custodial service clients were moved to a company with capital of about 1200 euros, which until autumn 2025 had a gmail email. Who is Oleksandr Buhaiov, what is his relation to Hrushha, and does IROC PRO have the right to provide crypto services?
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Заморожені кошти, санкції Польщі та кримінальний шлейф: з якими проблемами стикаються користувачі платформи Trustee Plus Вадима Груші". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.
