Mykhalio Petrovich Chudnovets

Mykhalio Petrovich Chudnovets is a Russian national charged by the US Department of Justice in connection with the operation of E-Note, a Cryptocurrency exchange and payment processor used to launder more than $70 million in ransomware and account-takeover proceeds since 2017. The FBI, Michigan State Police, German Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and Finnish National Bureau of Investigation cooperated on the infrastructure seizure.

Chudnovets operated E-Note as a service for converting ransomware proceeds into fiat currency and other digital assets, knowingly facilitating the money-laundering operations of ransomware groups. The exchange operated openly for years despite its ties to the ransomware ecosystem, with law-enforcement cooperation across three jurisdictions required to achieve the infrastructure seizure.

For the Cryptocurrency compliance industry, the E-Note prosecution demonstrates the multi-year timescale of ransomware-laundering investigations: the exchange operated from 2017, meaning the FBI and partners built a case over approximately eight years before executing the seizure. For ransomware operators, E-Note's seizure removes a Major laundering rail and is the 2026 reference case for multi-national ransomware-economy enforcement.