The US Department of Justice announced on Friday criminal charges against the exchange administrators of Russian Garantex to allegedly facilitate money laundering from criminal and terrorist organizations, as well as violating US sanctions.
Both administrators are national residents and Russian Lithuanian, Aleksej Besciokov, 46, and Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian national residing in the United Arab Emirates, who “knew that criminal income was being cleared through the guarantor and took steps to hide the facilitation of illegal activities in their platform.
Doj said that the guarantex “received hundreds of millions of criminal revenues and was used to facilitate various crimes, including Hakim, Ransomware, Terrorism and Drug Traffic,” and that the exchange processed at least $ 96 billion in Cryptocurrency transactions since 2019.
In the indictment, prosecutors accuse Besciokov of personally allowing transactions related to criminals online, including North Korean government hackers known as Lazarus Group.
The announcement of the indictment came a day after the US Secret Service and a coalition of law enforcement agencies rejected and captured the official websites of the Garantex, replacing their content with a flag presenting agency logos and seizure notice.
When Techcrunch arrived at three e -mail address Garantex listed on its official page before taking takedown, our email returned as unworthy. Garantex did not respond to numerous commentary requests through his official telegram channel.
Besciocov and Mira Sera are both accused of a money laundering plot, while Besciokov is also accused of plot to violate sanctions and plot, and the operation of an unlicensed money transmission business. The two face a maximum of 20 years in prison for money laundering charges, while Besciokov faces another 20 -year maximum sentence for plot to violate the Sanctions of SH.BA
It is unclear if the two have been arrested. Shannon Shevlin, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, told Techcrunch he did not know if Mira Serda was arrested in the United Arab Emirates.
The two busy Guatex administrators could not be reached by Techcrunch for comment.
US prosecutors claimed that Besciokov and Mira Serda knew that their cryptocurrency exchange was used for money laundering and worked actively to make it happen even when Russian authorities asked questions. According to DOJ, when Russian law enforcement requested registrations at a point linked to a Mira Serda account in Garantex, the company provided incomplete information, and “claimed that the account was not verified.”
“In reality, the Garantex had accompanied the account with personal identification documents good Serda,” according to the indictment.
Millions in seized cryptocurrencies, doj confirms
Garantex has been the focus of the Western government’s action for several years.
In 2022, as part of a series of Russian internet crime, the US Treasury sanctioned Garantex, citing an analysis that “over $ 100 million in transactions are linked to illegal actors and dinner markets, including about $ 6 million from Russian (Ransomware as a service) Gang Conti and also including $ 2.6 million.”
Also, in 2024, as part of a series of sanctions against Russia for the occupation of Ukraine, the European Union sanctioned the Garantex, claiming that the exchange is “closely linked to Russian banks sanctioned by the EU”.
According to DOJ, despite the sanctions imposed by the US government, BESCIOKOV and its co-conspirators, violated the law of sanctions by continuing to accept transactions with US-based entities, and also “redesigned Garantex operations to avoid US sanctions and encourage US businesses to make an unwanted transaction in violation.”
“For example, Garantex moved its cryptocurrency operational wallets to various virtual currency addresses on a daily basis in order to make it difficult for SH.BA -based cryptocurrency exchanges to identify and block transactions with Garantex accounts,” Read the Doj announcement.
Doj also said that US law enforcement raised over $ 26 million in funds used to facilitate the money laundering of the guarantees. The spokesman for Shevlin told Techcrunch that the department raised a total of 23.034,884.75 tether and 35.57 Bitcoin in Binance (worth about $ 3 million since Friday), reaching about $ 26.2 million.
Even before these law enforcement actions, the Garantex announced on Thursday that he had suspended “all services, including Cryptocurrency’s withdrawals, after the Stablecoin issuer blocked the wallets belonging to guarantees holding more than $ 28 million.
“We have bad news. Tether has entered the fight against the Russian crypt market, “Garantex wrote on his official telegram channel in a notice.” We are fighting and we will not give up! Please note that all (tether) in Russian wallets are currently under threat. As always, we are the first, but not the last. “
Following the DOJ announcement on Friday, the Garantex posted an alarm in the telegram about the fraudsters “claiming it is restoring the Garantex exchange or offering to attract funds.”
“These are all deceitful! Their goal is to gain access to users’ personal data, portfolio addresses and other sensitive information,” reading in Russian is read, according to a machine translation.
The announcement made no mention of the website, neither about Bescikov’s indictments and Mira Serda.
