Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange that is popular with ransomware -bands and darknets, has been removed in an international law enforcement operation, according to a Friday announcement from the US Ministry of Justice (DOJ).
On Thursday, a coalition of law enforcement authorities from the United States, Germany and Finland Garantex’s domains and servers and froze nearly $ 28 million in crypto tied to the exchange using stableecoin issuer Tether.
The U.S. Treasury for Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctioned Garantex by 2022 and accused the exchange of consciously facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets such as Hydra, which before its 2022 closed, was once the largest darknet market in the world.
The sanctions had little or no influence on Garantex -according to data from Blockchain Sleuthing company Elliptic, which helped the United States in its study, treated the stock exchange more than $ 60 billion in crypto transactions after being sanctioned. In total, the exchange has traded over $ 96 billion.
According to court documents, Garantex collected almost no knowledge-your-custom (KYC) information about its clients, enabling criminals to use their services uncontrollably and accounts were registered to customers using names such as “drug”.
In addition to Ransomware players and Darknet markets, the Garanteex’s clientele allegedly included North Korea’s state-sanctioned hacking team, the Lazarus group behind the massive 1.5 billion dollars by bit-Heist last month, as well as Russian oligarchs, which used the service to avoid international sanctions bound to war in Ukraine. Sophisticated international sanctions scaling companies, such as TGR Group, which meets Russian elites, has been tied to Garantex.
Following the seizure of Garantex’s servers and domains, two of its operators have been criminal in the United States for their connections to the exchange.
Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov, 46, is accused of having money laundering, conspiracy, conspiracy to violate sanctions and conspiracy to run an unlicensed money that transmits business. Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian citizen currently resident of the United Arab Emirates is charged with conspiracy of money laundering.
