The US Secret Service, working with a coalition of international law enforcement services, has concluded and occupied Garantex’s website, a Russian encryption exchange accusing it to be linked to Darknet and Hackers Ransomware.
On Thursday, the official Garantex website was replaced by notifying that the exchange sector has been seized by the Secret Service after a warrant from the US lawyer’s office for the eastern Virginia region.
This is the last action of Western anti -Moscow -based exchanges.
Last month, the European Union was also ratified in Garantex As, saying Is “closely linked to Russian banks approved by the EU.” This was part of a package of sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, US Treasury Ministry of Finance was ratified by Garantexarguing that more than $ 100 million in transactions in the exchange “are associated with illegal actors and darknet markets”, including the infamous Russian gang of Ransomware Conti and the Darknet Market Hydra.
Nate Herring, a spokesman for the US Secret Service, confirmed to TechCrunch in a statement that the organization “occupied the areas of the website related to the administration and operation of the Russian encryption exchange, Garantex as part of an ongoing research” while refusing to provide further comments.
The Takedown announcement, considered by TechCrunch, said the operation was coordinated with the US Department of Justice, the Federal Investigation Office, the Netherlands National Police and the National Police National Police Police (Bundeskriminalamt)
TechCrunch has reached all these organizations for comments. At the time of writing, only the FBI responded, refused to comment.
TechCrunch also arrived at Garantex through the official email addresses listed on the site before the seizure, as well as through the company’s telegram account. Garantex did not respond to these messages.
TechCrunch has verified the site’s seizure alert by analyzing the field files facing the Garantex Internet. Since Thursday, Garantex’s web sector now shows servers known to be controlled by the Secret Service. The same server also hosts several other site seizure alerts carried out by the Secret Service in recent years.
After the seizure, Garantex made no reference to the law enforcement operation on the official telegraph channels. On Thursday morning, Garantex announced That “suspends all services, including encryption withdrawals”, according to a mechanical translation of the announcement.
The decision came after publisher Stablecoin Tether frozen $ 28 million of his encryption in Garantex.
“We have bad news,” Garantex wrote. “We are struggling and we will not give up! Note that all [Tether] Russian wallets are currently threatened. ”
