Serial fraudster Andreas Kartrud has been sentenced to six years in prison.

Norwegian authorities arrested Kartrud in late 2024. Kartrud, who holds dual Norwegian and Swedish citizenship, was then promptly extradited to Sweden.

Swedish authorities charged Kartrud (right) with aggravated money laundering, corporate money laundering and tax crime.

All three crimes are designated “serious offenses” under Swedish law.

In addition to prison time, the Malmo District Court also ordered 83.5 million SEK monetary judgment (~$8.7 million USD), as well as a 13.2 million SEK tax penalty (~$1.3 million USD).

On top of the tax penalty, Kartrud is also subject to a “tax surcharge” of 133.5 million SEK (~$14 million USD).

In determining his guilt on July 7th, the Malmo District Court found Kartrud

  • “intentionally” committed tax fraud;
  • laundered over $2 million through Binance accounts between July 2021 and August 2021, “for the purpose of concealing money or other property derived from crime or criminal activity”; and
  • transferred $10.1 million dollars to Russian national Khashin Evengy between March and May 2021, “for the purpose of concealing money or other property derived from crime or criminal activity (Evengy is assumed to be an accomplice)

Specific to Kartrud’s alleged investment fraud;

The case concerns assets and actions involving cryptocurrency. The case concerns events on the trading platforms Binance and HTX.

The case also concerns so-called smart contracts that Andreas Kartrud was behind.

In 2020, Andreas Kartrud started several projects in the form of smart contracts … three of them were named Etherchain, Tronchain and Eclipcity.

BehindMLM reviewed Kartrud’s “Eclipcity” MLM crypto Ponzi schemes as they launched; Etherchain (June 2020), Tronchain (August 2020), Cyberchain (September 2020) and Eclipcity Global (January 2021).

The projects/smart-contracts Etherchain, Tronchain and Eclipcity have been structured as pyramid schemes.

Pyramid schemes are illegal gambling activities and the smart-contracts Etherchain, Tronchain and Eclipcity were investment scams.

Although the basic idea of a smart-contract is that they should not be able to be influenced by, for example, the person who created the contract, it is fully possible for the person who creates a smart-contract program so they have full access to the assets contained in the contract.

This has been done in this case.

Kartrud has since emptied the smart-contracts of their assets. A very large part of the assets were moved to electronic wallets and accounts on trading platforms belonging to Kartrud.

[Kartrud] emptied the smart-contract Eclipcity Global of just over $31 million US dollars.

Just over $10 million US dollars was transferred to a Russian user on Binance.

Since the assets came from an investment fraud in the form of illegal pyramid schemes, they are to be considered as proceeds of crime.

By receiving and transferring these assets, Kartrud has been guilty of serious money laundering crime.

On tax fraud;

Andreas Kartrud has been subject to unlimited tax liability in Sweden during tax years 2020 – 2022.

A large part of the assets from the smart contracts have landed in Andreas Kartrud’s account on the trading platform Binance.

He has made big profits by trading cryptocurrencies on Binance. Profits that he has not declared, neither in Sweden nor anywhere else.

What triggers taxation are the profits from trading on Binance.

Because it is investors’ money and not Andreas Kartrud’s own that ended up in the Binance account, he cannot be credited with any amount.

And on money laundering;

Andreas Kartrud has received four transactions in a short period of time into his Binance account, which totals nearly $19 million US dollars.

The money comes from other user accounts on Binance held by a Russian citizen.

Andreas Kartrud received the assets without having any knowledge of who sent the assets to him or the source – he therefore did not know whether they were legal assets or assets arising from crime.

Kartrud has not done any checks whatsoever of where the assets came from.

When the assets came into Kartrud’s account, he has more or less immediately sold them.

This constitutes reprehensible risk-taking and is the basis for the claim of money laundering.

Pending Kartrud commencing his sentence, he will remain in custody having been deemed a deemed flight risk.