United States authorities have unveiled an enormous reward for any data supplied relating to the administration members of the Garantex crypto alternate.
After working for years and facilitating billions of transactions involving cybercriminals, the now rebranded entity is beneath heavy hearth.
Substantial Reward
The Workplace of the Spokesperson for the US Division of State issued an announcement yesterday, asserting that it’s focusing on the now-obsolete Russian cryptocurrency alternate Garantex, which was allegedly utilized by a wide range of criminals finishing up cybercrime and cash laundering inside its community.
The division’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP) has ready two rewards, totaling as much as $6 million, for any data that results in the arrest or conviction of Garantex executives. That is break up between as much as $5M for Russian nationwide Aleksandr Mira Serda, co-owner and CCO, and as much as $1 million for different key leaders of the alternate.
OFAC, the Treasury’s Workplace of International Belongings Management, is taking steps to redesignate Garantex and designate its successor, Grinex, which stays operational. This adopted Tether’s interference, which concerned blocking wallets related to the alternate and seizing USDT property earlier this 12 months.
German and Finnish authorities additionally aided by seizing their area and freezing over $26 million in digital property managed by Garantex. OFAC can even be naming three executives from the alternate and 6 affiliated firms in Russia and the Kyrgyz Republic.
As per experiences from the FBI and U.S. Secret Service, between April 2019 and March 2025, the alternate processed not less than $96 billion in crypto transactions. It additionally acquired lots of of tens of millions in proceeds from the criminals utilizing it to hold out a spread of crimes, together with terrorism, drug trafficking, ransoms, and others, oftentimes, inflicting vital hurt to victims from the US.
Recognized Info
Garantex was based on the finish of 2019 and registered in Estonia. Most of its operations had been performed from Moscow and St. Petersburg. In February 2022, it misplaced its license for offering digital asset providers after Estonia’s Monetary Intelligence Unit (EFIU) unveiled critical deficiencies in its legal guidelines towards cash laundering and terrorist financing, as wallets linked to prison exercise had been found.
After the EFIU enforcement and OFAC’s designation, the alternate created an infrastructure designed to forestall establishments from accrediting pockets addresses again to them, in an try to evade sanctions. This allowed them to proceed offering providers to numerous entities concerned in prison actions.
A identified cash launderer, Ekaterina Zhdanova, has reportedly funneled over $2 million in Bitcoin to the USDT stablecoin utilizing the alternate. She is presently being pursued beneath an government order from November 2023 for conducting monetary operations or providers on this planet’s largest nation.
In March 2025, the US DOJ unsealed indictments towards the CCO and Aleksej Besciokov, a identified government. Following this, the latter was arrested in India, whereas the previous stays at massive.
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