Garantex, a popular Russian cryptographic exchange between ransomware gangs and Darknet markets, has been eliminated in an international operation of application of the law, according to a Friday’s announcement of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).
On Thursday, a coalition of agencies for the application of the US law., Germany and Finland confiscated the guarantor domains and servers, and froze almost $ 28 million in cryptography linked to the exchange with the help of the stablecoin emitting layer.
The US Treasury Treasury Control Office (OFAC).
The sanctions had little or no effect on guarantax, according to the data of the Blockchain Elliptic detection firm, which helped the United States in their investigation, the exchange processed more than $ 60 billion in cryptographic transactions after being sanctioned. In total, the exchange has made transactions more than $ 96 billion.
According to judicial documents, guarantax did not compile virtually any knowledge information (KYC) about their customers, allowing criminals to use their services without control, and the accounts were recorded in customers who use names such as “drugs”, “computer pirates”, “Taliban”, “boxes, clean boxes” and “God”.
In addition to the Ransomware actors and the Darknet markets, the guarantex clientele supposedly included the state piracy team sanctioned by North Korea, the Lazarus group, which was behind the huge robberies of $ 1.5 billion bybit last month, as well as the Russian oligarchs, which used the service to evade international sanctions tied to the war in Ukraine. The sophisticated international sanctions of the evasion companies, such as TGR Group, which attend the Russian elites, have been linked to guarantax.
After the seizure of guarantorx servers and domains, two of its operators have been criminally accused in the United States for their connections with the exchange.
Aleksej Besciokov, a 46 -year -old Lithuanian resident, has been accused of conspiracy of money laundering, conspiracy to violate sanctions and conspiracy to operate a business transmission business without a license. Aleksandr Mira Serda, 40, a Russian citizen who currently resides in the United Arab Emirates, has been accused of money laundering conspiracy.
