One of the operators of sanctioned Russian Cryptocurrency Guarantee Garantex was arrested in India on Tuesday, according to two recent news reports.

Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, was allegedly arrested by police in the Indian state of Kerala while on holiday on the country’s south coast with his family, Techcrunch and crayfish curity reported.

Last week, a coalition of international law enforcement agencies from the United States, Germany and Finland Guarantee’s domains and servers and froze almost $ 28 million in crypto tied to the exchange using StableCecoin emissions. The exchange was sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) in 2022 to deliberately facilitate money laundering to ransomware players, including Conti and Black Basta, and Darknet Markets as Hydra, the largest such market in the world before its closure in 2022.

In addition to allegedly ease of money laundering for criminals, including North Korea’s internal hacking team Lazarus group, which was behind the massive $ 1.5 billion BYBIT Heist last month, Guarantee reportedly played a major role in sanctions development. UPSCALE SANKING DEPARTMENT SERVICE SERVICES AS THE TGR GROUP, which accommodates Russian oligarchs, has been associated with the exchange.

Read more: Sanctioned Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex seized, Operators indicted for money laundering money laundering

In connection with the seizure, US prosecutors accused Besciokov and another of Guarantee’s operators, 40-year-old Russian Aleksandr Mira Serda, resident of the United Arab Emirates, with money laundering money laundering. Besciokov is currently listed on the US Secret Service’s most sought -after list.

Neither the Kerala police nor the US Department of Justice (DOJ) responded to Coindesk’s request for comment on Besciokov’s reported arrest.