A court-appointed receiver says a St. Peterburg-based company is violating money laundering rules as well as American sanctions against Russia.
The federal lawsuit, filed by Melanie Damian, also says Deel Inc. is “an illegal enterprise” with significant ties to Russia and transmits money without required U.S. licenses. Deel hails itself as a leader in the emerging Human Resources outsourcing industry that encourages growth of the “gig” economy.
Damian is the court-appointed Securities and Exchange Commission receiver on behalf of Surge Capital Ventures LLC. She filed the complaint January 3 on behalf of herself and others similarly situated against Deel Inc., DPayments LLC and Jeremy Berger.
In the complaint, Damian seeks to recover damages, including money paid by Surge and other members of the putative class to Deel, in connection with an enterprise involving unlicensed money transmission and money laundering around the world in violation of state and federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act laws.
She also seeks injunctive relief to enjoin all defendants’ future and continued illegal conduct that has caused, and continues to cause, harm to members of the potential class and the public. The complaint says this harm results from the defendants’ failure to implement and comply with approved Anti-Money Laundering and Know Your Customer policies and procedures as required by the Bank Secrecy Act and state money transmitter licensing laws as well as violation of the Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations including doing or enabling others to do business in Russia in violation of United States sanctions.
The complaint details an alleged money laundering and sanctions-busting racketeering scheme involving a high-profile Silicon Valley tech startup, a Puerto Rican crypto bank co-founded by Russian nationals and a sanctioned Russian bank based in Moscow.
“Deel’s business model includes transitioning employees to consultants and transmitting money on their behalf around the world while not in compliance with applicable state and federal labor, money transmission, anti-money laundering and other licensing laws and regulations,” the complaint states. “Deel operates with businesses, firms and industries including many firms in high-risk industries such as proprietary trading and cryptocurrency, industries that most licensed and compliant financial firms avoid because their BSA/AML policies prohibit it as too risky and lacking a way to ensure legal compliance.”
One such firm that Deel partnered with was Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by now-jailed Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian businessman (and Canada’s richest person) who pleaded guilty in 2024 to a U.S. money laundering charge filed in 2023.
In November 2023, Binance announced it would no longer accept its BUSD stable coin as a withdrawal method for Dee1, thus forcing Deel to rely on other crypto partners after Zhao was arrested and later convicted of money laundering.
“In spite of this risky client profile, Deel markets itself as the best firm to help ‘companies hire workers legally and compliantly around the world’ with the ‘most robust compliance in the industry,’” the complaint states. “While stressing that Deel has the ‘most robust compliance in the industry’ and can ‘ensure benefits compliance,’ Deel’s CEO candidly admitted in an online interview that Deel’s entire business purpose was to disrupt the current highly regulated model of employment and replace it with a ‘gig’ model of its own creation — one designed to classify (or misclassify) most employees as independent contractors.”
The complaint says Damian discovered Deel’s Florida subsidiary is run by Berger, co-founder of Arival Bank of Puerto Rico, which failed the territory’s regulatory examination and was found by the Puerto Rican Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions to pose “serious damage or imminent danger” to the banking system and the public.
Arival is identified in the complaint as a crypto bank that was co-founded by Russian nationals based in Florida and was employing Russian-trained compliance chief Anastasia Cavallini, who is now Deel’s global head of compliance, when the Puerto Rican bank failed its AML/KYC regulatory checks.
In the complaint, Damian seeks recovery and disgorgement of more than $2.2 million Deel allegedly transmitted through the Florida subsidiary without a money transmitter license, and in violation of federal anti-money laundering rules and know your customer rules required under the Bank Secrecy Act.
The complaint also inclues images from English and Russian-language websites and documents showing Deel has run “an unlicensed money transmission business in Russia” in violation of sanctions imposed by the Office of Foreign Asset Control, including a partnership with T-Bank aka Tinkoff Bank, a Russian financial institution sanctioned by OFAC in 2023.
“Deel’s unlicensed activities make it another ‘greedy partner’ to Russian efforts to evade sanctions and launder money,” the complaint states, also noting Deel has been found in violation of state money transmission and lending licensing laws in Minnesota and says it is violating financial regulations and laws in the state of Florida.
Damian says DPayments is part of a larger illegal money transmitting racketeering scheme led by Deel to violate state and federal money transmitting laws and to violate U.S. sanctions on moving money into Russia. Berger is the sole authorized person and registered agent of DPayments.
Berger’s Forbes profile says he also is the portfolio director for Life.Sreda, which has made more than 20 investments across the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia. Life.Sreda was founded by Vladislav Solodkiy in Moscow as a Russian venture capital fund investing in fintech startups in the U.S. market.
Solodkiy, Berger and Florida-based Russian national Igor Pesin co-founded Arival Bank based in Puerto Rico.
Damian’s complaint accuses the defendants of operation of a RICO enterprise in violation of federal laws.
In addition to seeking to have the class certified, she seeks compensatory damages, including disgorgement of all monies transferred to the defendants for money transmission or related services. She also wants to have the defendants enjoined from continuing such activities, and she seeks statutory treble damages, fees, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
Damian is being represented by Guy M. Burns of Johnson Pope Bokor Ruppel & Burns in Tampa and by Thomas R. Grady of Grady Law in Naples.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida case number 1:25-cv-20017