The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed sanctions on two 46-year-old Russian individuals and their companies for their involvement in cyber influence operations. Ilya Andreevich Gambashidze and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Tupikin, along with their respective companies, are accused of facilitating a disinformation campaign known as Doppelganger, targeting audiences in Europe and the U.S. through fake news sites and social media accounts.
The sanctions were levied against Gambashidze’s Moscow-based company, Social Design Agency (SDA), and Tupikin’s Russia-based Company Group Structura LLC (Structura), both of which are alleged to have provided services to the Russian government in support of the malign influence campaign. These services included creating websites impersonating government organizations and legitimate media outlets in Europe.
In the fall of 2022, Gambashidze and Tupikin orchestrated a campaign that involved the creation of over 60 spoofed websites designed to mimic legitimate news sources. These fake websites were crafted to closely resemble their genuine counterparts, featuring embedded images, working links, and even replicated cookie consent pages to deceive visitors.
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis discovered that Gambashidze received over $200,000 worth of USDT on the TRON network, with a significant portion originating from the now-sanctioned exchange Garantex. Gambashidze then proceeded to cash out most of these funds to a single deposit address at a mainstream exchange, underscoring Garantex’s alleged involvement in illicit activities associated with the Russian government’s operations.
