By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
THE U.S. Secret Service has seized the website of Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex as part of a multimillion-dollar money laundering case.
According to court documents, the Justice Department has charged two administrators, Aleksej Besciokov, 46, a Lithuanian national and Russian resident, and Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian national, with laundering criminal proceeds through the platform.
Garantex, a Moscow-based exchange, allegedly processed illicit transactions linked to ransomware, hacking, drug trafficking, and sanctions violations. The platform initially operated through the website Garantex.io before moving to Garantex.org. Court documents state that Garantex misled law enforcement, including Russian authorities, about the identities of its users.
Since April 2019, Garantex has handled $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions, with a portion of those funds allegedly used to finance illegal activities, according to the Justice Department.
Garantex operations
“The seizure of website domains associated with Garantex’s operations and the freezing of over $26 million in cryptocurrency strikes a serious financial blow to cybercriminals worldwide,” said Michael Centrella, assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Field Operations.
“Alongside our U.S. and international law enforcement partners, this coordinated action will prevent additional funds from falling into the hands of criminals.”
Court filings allege that Besciokov knowingly allowed accounts linked to North Korean cybercriminals to operate on the platform. The exchange had been under U.S. sanctions since at least 2022. By early 2023, Besciokov and his associates allegedly restructured Garantex’s operations to evade U.S. sanctions and deceive American businesses into unknowingly processing transactions with the exchange.
The indictment states that the exchange frequently moved its cryptocurrency wallets to new virtual addresses to obscure its activities. Besciokov and Serda also took steps to conceal their involvement from Russian authorities, court records show.
The seizure announcement comes the day after Garantex announced a temporary halt of its operations on its Telegram channel.
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