TechFlow News, February 2: According to a Cointelegraph report, Igor Runets, founder and CEO of Russian Bitcoin mining company BitRiver, has been detained on suspicion of tax evasion.
Court documents from Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court indicate that Runets was detained on January 30 and charged on January 31 with three counts of tax evasion through asset concealment. He was sentenced to house arrest. If his appeal fails or is not filed, the house arrest order will take effect on February 4, restricting Runets to his residence for the duration of the case.
Founded in 2017, BitRiver is one of Russia’s largest Bitcoin mining companies, operating multiple large-scale data centers in Siberia. According to Bloomberg, as of the end of 2024, Runets had accumulated approximately $230 million in net assets through cryptocurrency mining operations.
Since being sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2022 due to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, BitRiver has faced multiple challenges, including SBI Bank of Japan halting use of its infrastructure, unpaid employee wages, and two lawsuits filed against it by Siberian infrastructure suppliers.
