A Bank of America insider is pleading guilty to boosting a global money laundering conspiracy that aided drug traffickers and other illegal businesses, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

The DOJ says former Bank of America employee Rongjian Li was a member of a money laundering and drug trafficking outfit headed by Jin Hua Zhang.

According to prosecutors, Li used his position at the bank from 2021 through 2022 to help the criminal organization open several accounts.

Zhang’s organization then used the BofA accounts, some of which were registered using forged passports, to launder illicit funds.

“As part of his involvement, when the bank’s financial auditing systems flagged or froze accounts for suspicious activity, Li helped Zhang circumvent the bank’s anti-money laundering protocols and move illicit funds elsewhere.

In addition, Li was observed sitting next to Zhang at a dinner in New York, where Zhang discussed the different fee percentages he charged various criminal groups for drug trafficking and scams.”

Zhang’s organization is believed to have laundered millions of dollars in a span of months, according to the DOJ.

“The investigation revealed that, for a fee, Zhang laundered bulk cash for drug dealers and laundered profits from other illegal businesses. In less than a year, Zhang and his organization laundered at least $25 million worth of drug proceeds and funds from other illegal businesses through undercover agents.”

Li has pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He faces a monetary fine and a prison sentence.

“The charge of money laundering conspiracy provides for a sentence of up to 20 years in prison, up to three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $500,000, or twice the amount involved, whichever is greater.”

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One of the operators of sanctioned Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex was arrested in India on Tuesday, according to two recent news reports.

Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, was reportedly arrested by police in the Indian state of Kerala, while vacationing on the country’s southern coast with his family, Techcrunch and KrebsonSecurity reported.

Last week, a coalition of international law enforcement agencies from the U.S., Germany and Finland seized Garantex’s domains and servers and froze nearly $28 million in crypto tied to the exchange with the help of stablecoin issuer Tether. The exchange was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) in 2022, for knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets like Hydra, the largest such market in the world before its closure in 2022.

In addition to allegedly facilitating money laundering for criminals, including North Korea’s in-house hacking squad the Lazarus Group, which was behind the massive $1.5 billion Bybit heist last month, Garantex reportedly played a large role in sanctions evasion. Upscale sanctions evasion services like the TGR Group, which cater to Russian oligarchs, have been connected to the exchange.

Read more: Sanctioned Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex Seized, Operators Charged With Money Laundering

In conjunction with the seizure, U.S. prosecutors charged Besciokov and another of Garantex’s operators, 40-year-old Russian Aleksandr Mira Serda, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, with money laundering conspiracy. Besciokov is currently listed on the U.S. Secret Service’s Most Wanted list.

Neither the Kerala police nor the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment about Besciokov’s reported arrest.

A fellow at crypto think tank Coin Center filed suit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday, seeking a judge’s guarantee that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will not be able to prosecute his forthcoming crypto project for violating money transmitting laws in the future.

The lawsuit, filled by blockchain entrepreneur Michael Lewellen, claims that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) criminal prosecution of software developers who publish noncustodial cryptocurrency software – including the ongoing prosecutions of Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm and Samourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez – is unconstitutional, and violates the First and Fifth Amendments.

In addition to being unconstitutional, the suit claims, the DOJ’s prosecution of crypto developers “betray[s] its own representations to the public,” that, unless developers have “total independent control over the value” being moved, they are not acting as money transmitters.

Lewellen’s suit comes amidst growing concerns about government persecution of crypto privacy software developers, both in the U.S. and abroad. Tornado Cash’s Storm is facing up to 45 years in prison if convicted on all counts tied to his work with the crypto mixing service; Rodriguez faces a 25 year maximum sentence for creating Samourai Wallet. Both men have pleaded not guilty, and will go to trial this year.

In the absence of a clear regulatory and legal framework for cryptocurrencies, preemptive lawsuits like Lewellen’s are becoming increasingly common. Last year, two NFT artists filed suit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seeking a similar declaratory judgment protecting them from civil penalties from the SEC.

Read more: Does the SEC Really Have Jurisdiction Over NFT Art? Two Artists Sue SEC to Get an Answer

Through his suit, Lewellen is trying to avoid Rodrigez and Storm’s fate. His forthcoming project, Pharos, is essentially a crypto-based Kickstarter. Built on Ethereum, his crowdfunding platform will use a type of smart contracts he calls “assurance contracts” to ensure that donors will automatically get their money back if the project is not fully funded. The project will also have privacy features that prevents a project’s donors from being publicly identifiable.

As the creator and publisher of the Pharos software, Lewellen will only receive a predetermined fee from projects that are successful. According to his suit, “he will never have control over the cryptocurrency that goes through Pharos.”

Garland, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, will soon depart the DOJ. Incoming President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Garland as Attorney General, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, is currently undergoing nomination hearings. Garland’s successor will be automatically replaced as the named defendant of the suit upon his departure from the DOJ.