The head of the market-making company Gotbit, Alexey Andryunin, has been charged with fraud and conspiracy to manipulate the market. The U.S. Department of Justice indictment also mentions two other Gotbit employees — Fedor Kedrov and Kuavi Jalili.

The combined charges could lead to a prison sentence of up to 20 years.

On October 6, Andryunin was detained in Portugal at the request of the U.S. His arrest and others were part of charges brought by the U.S. DOJ and SEC against Gotbit and three other companies — ZM Quant, CLS Global, and MyTrade.

All companies are accused of market manipulation and wash trading to artificially inflate trading volumes for tokens. Prosecutors say this marks the first criminal prosecution for market manipulation in the cryptocurrency sector.