The United States Treasury Foreign Treasury Control Office (OFAC) On Thursday, he sanctioned a network of companies, exchanges and executives linked to the exchange of Russian crypto Garantex and the Stablecoin A7A5 backed by ruble, accusing them of helping Moscow fail international sanctions.
Garantex, founded in 2019 and once licensed in Estonia, processed more than $ 100 million in transactions linked to the activity of Ransomware and Darknet, said Ofac. American officials, who work with the German and Finnish police, confiscated their web domain and froze $ 26 million in March, which quickly led to the creation of their successor Grinex to continue the operations, authorities said.
Ofac said Thursday that Grinex transferred customer funds from guarantex and used the Token A7A5 to restore access after seizures. Issued by the Old Vector firm based in Kyrguistan, A7A5 was created for Russian users of A7 LLC, a cross -border liquidation platform, the agency said.
It is backed by state promssvyazbank state property of Russia (PSB)Who was sanctioned for financing the defense industry, and the Moldavo politician Ilan Shor, who was sentenced in a case of bank fraud of $ 1 billion, information resilience reported.
Ofac sanctioned Old Vector, A7 LLC and his A71 and Agent A7 subsidiaries, blocking them from the financial system based on US dollars and prohibit people to interact with any of these entities or more than a dozen cryptographic directions linked to them.
Garantex’s key executives, Sergey Mendeleev, Aleksandr Mira Serda and Pavel Karavatsky, were also sanctioned, along with Mendeleev Indefi Bank companies and have spread, accused of allowing Russian companies sanctioned to trade through crypts.
Treasury officials said the action, coordinated with the Secret Service of the United States and the FBI, aimed to cut the digital asset channels used for the evasion of ransomware and sanctions.
“Exploit cryptocurrency exchanges to wash money and facilitate ransomware attacks not only threatens our national security, but also tarnish the reputation of legitimate suppliers of virtual asset services,” said John K. Hurley, under the secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a statement.
Crypto Rails to evade sanctions
A7A5 has grown rapidly this year, processing around $ 1 billion per day for July, according to the report of the Blockchain Elliptic analysis firm. The firm said that the Token supports a “sanctions evasion scheme” that allows Russian companies to establish cross -border payments outside the traditional banking system.
The chain analysis estimated that the volume of accumulated transactions of Token exceeded $ 51 billion until July, warning that it offers “a new crypto-national route to avoid the increasing sanctions against Russia.”
“The emergence of the A7A5 network today illustrates even more how Russia is operationalizing these alternative payment rails,” said the firm.
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