It wasn’t a good week for the Russian Cryptographic Exchange Garantex.
First, Thursday, publisher Stablecoin Tether Blocked access to Garantex’s wallets This owned about $ 28 million from the chapters of the encryption exchange. On the same day, an international law enforcement operation led by the US Secret Service occupied the official Garantex websites. At that time, Garantex made no mention of this feature on its official telegraph channels. Instead, the company announced Was “inhibiting all services, including encryption withdrawals”.
Subsequently, on Friday, the US Ministry of Justice announced charges against two of the exchange administrators, Aleksej Besciokov, and Aleksandr Mira Serda, accusing the couple of revenue of money laundering for their platform on behalf of criminals and terrorists. US prosecutors also said it froze more than $ 26 million in Tether and Bitcoin used to facilitate money laundering, which explained what happened to Tether wallets.
Since Saturday, Garantex has offered a possible salvation to its customers – with a catch.
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Do you intend to attend the meeting at Garantex’s office? Or do you have more information about the exchange? From a device and non-work network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-bicchierai safely on the mark on +1 917 257 1382, or through the telegram and keybase @lorenzofb or email. You can also contact TechCrunch via securedrop.
Without recognizing law enforcement, Garantex published an announcement On the official channel of the telegram, saying that “he has developed a solution for blocked assets” and invites customers with a positive account balance “in a personal meeting in our office in Moscow”, according to a mechanical translation.
Gazex said It will start at the “face -to -face” office from Monday and asks customers to arrive “with the phone to which the account is connected and access to your email” because the company “may need to send you confirmation codes”, the announcement read.
The company’s request is unusual, in a world that appreciates anonymity like the Crypto world. Appears in the offices of a company approved by both The US government and The European Union It poses difficult risks to customers, despite the risk of the Russian government itself, and there is no guarantee at this point that Garantex will be able to return customers.
It is not clear how many customers have Garantex, but the exchange has processed more than $ 96 billion in encryption transactions since 2019, according to DOJ. Garantex probably has a large number of customers, many of whom live nowhere near Moscow.
Garantex did not respond to a request for comments.
