Two key figures in the Florida-based steel trading company, Metalhouse LLC, have been sentenced after pleading guilty to multiple charges involving money laundering and breaches of U.S. sanctions. John Can Unsalan, the president of Metalhouse LLC, has been sentenced to six years in prison and ordered to forfeit $160 million. Sergey Karpushkin, a Belarusian national residing in Miami, received a 21-month prison sentence and was ordered to forfeit $4.7 million.
John Can Unsalan was found guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering in support of violations of U.S. sanctions targeting pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Sergey Kurchenko. Sergey Karpushkin admitted to conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and to engage in international promotional money laundering.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had previously sanctioned Kurchenko in 2015 due to his involvement in misappropriating Ukrainian state assets. Additionally, two companies associated with Kurchenko—Kompaniya Gaz-Alyans OOO of Russia and ZAO Vneshtorgservis of the Russian-occupied Georgian region of South Ossetia—were sanctioned in 2018. These entities were recognized for acting on behalf of and providing material support to the separatist-controlled regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
Court documents reveal that from July 2018 to October 2021, Unsalan collaborated with others to transfer over $150 million to Kurchenko and his controlled entities, engaging in trade that involved significant quantities of metal products. Between July 2017 and August 2020, Karpushkin, working through Metalhouse, entered into transactions for pig iron, steel billets, and wire rods from these sanctioned companies, agreeing to share profits from these illegal dealings.
This case was part of a broader enforcement effort by the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture, which is dedicated to enforcing sanctions and economic countermeasures imposed in response to Russia’s military actions in Ukraine. The Task Force leverages all available legal tools and authorities to combat sanction evasion and related offenses.
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