The US Department of Justice Ministry announced on Friday Criminal charges against Russian encryption managers exchange Garantex for the alleged facilitating money laundering from illegal activities by criminal and terrorist organizations, as well as violating US sanctions.
The two managers are Lithuanian national and Russian residents Aleksej Besciokov, 46, and Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40 years old, a Russian national living in the United Arab Emirates, who “knew the criminal revenue was washed through Garantex and Activities on its platform. ” According to the indictment against them.
Doj said Garantex “received hundreds of millions in criminal revenue and was used to facilitate various crimes, including piracy, ransomware, terrorism and drug trafficking” and that the exchange had processed at least $ 96 billion in 2019.
In the indictment, prosecutors accuse Besciokov of allowing personal transactions linked to cyber criminals, including North Korean-Kyiberian pipelines known as Group Lazarus.
The announcement of the indictment came the day after the US secret service and a law enforcemental coalition occupied and occupied the official Garantex websites, replacing their content with a banner with organizations’ logos and announcing the seizure of the site.
When TechCrunch arrived in three Garantex email addresses mentioned on its official page before the cease, our messages were returned as non -delivered. Garantex did not respond to multiple requests for comments through the official telegram channel.
Besciokov and Mira Sera are accused of a conspiracy of money laundering, while Besciokov is also accused of conspiracy to violate sanctions and conspiracy and operate a money transmission. Both face a maximum of 20 years in prison for the burden of money laundering, while Besciokov is facing another maximum 20 -year penalty for conspiracy to violate US sanctions and another maximum of five years for conspiracy to operate a money transmission.
It is not clear if the two are arrested. Shannon Shevlin, a spokesman for the Justice Ministry, told TechCrunch that Doj does not know if Mira Serda was arrested in the UAE.
Garantex’s two charged managers could not be approached by TechCrunch for comments.
US prosecutors claimed that Besciokov and Mira Serda knew that the exchange of encryption was used for money laundering and worked actively to happen even when the Russian authorities asked questions. According to Doj, when the Russian law enforcement requested files at some point related to a Mira Serda account in Garantex, the company provided incomplete information and “claimed that the account was not verified”.
“In fact, Garantex had associated the account with Mira Serda’s personal recognition documents,” according to the indictment.
Millions in encryption were seized, confirming Doj
Garantex has been the focus of Western government’s action for several years.
In 2022 as part of a series of actions against Russian crime in cyberspace, US Treasury Ministry of Finance was ratified by GarantexReporting an analysis showing that “Over $ 100 million in transactions are associated with illegal actors and Darknet Markets, including nearly $ 6 million from Russian [Ransomware as a Service] Gang conti and also includes about $ 2.6 million from [darknet market] Seat.”
Also in 2024 as part of a series of sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine, The European Union was ratified by Garantexclaiming that the exchange “is closely linked to Russian banks approved by the EU.”
According to DOJ, despite sanctions imposed by the US government, Besciokov and his co-conspirators violated the law on sanctions, continuing to accept US-based transactions and also “redesigned companies of Garantex to avoid US corrections and violating US sanctions and violating US sanctions. by breach of sanctions. “
“For example, Garantex has transferred its functional encryption wallets to different virtual currency addresses on a daily basis to make it difficult for US -based encryption exchanges to locate and block transactions with Garantex accounts,” I read.
DOJ also said that the law enforcement of the US has frozen over $ 26 million in funds used to facilitate money laundering. Doj Shevlin’s spokesman told TechCrunch that the department froze a total of 23.034.884.75 Tether and 35.57 Bitcoin in Binance (worth about $ 3 million from Friday), about $ 26.2 million.
Even before these law enforcement, Garantex announced on Thursday that it had suspended “all services, including encryption withdrawals” Stablecoin publisher’s wallet wallets owned by Garantex that held more than $ 28 million.
“We have bad news. Tether entered the war against the Russian encryption market,” Garantex wrote in the official channel of the telegram in a communication. “We are struggling and we will not give up! Note that all [Tether] Russian wallets are currently threatened. As always, we are the first, but not the last. ”
Following Doj’s announcement on Friday, Garantex posted a notice on the telegram About the scammers “pretending to be the restored Garantex or offering to withdraw funds”.
“These are all scammers! Their goal is to access users’ personal data, wallet addresses and other sensitive information,” the announcement in Russian reading, according to a mechanical translation.
The announcement made no reference to the Takedown website, nor about the Besciov and Mira Serda indictments.
