TechFlow news — On March 7, according to a U.S. Department of Justice announcement, the United States, in coordination with Germany and Finland, successfully dismantled and seized the online infrastructure of cryptocurrency exchange Garantex. Since April 2019, the exchange has processed at least $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions and is accused of providing money laundering services for transnational criminal organizations—including terrorist groups—and violating sanctions regulations.
Separately, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has filed charges against two administrators of Garantex: 46-year-old Aleksej Besciokov, a Russian resident of Lithuanian nationality, and 40-year-old Aleksandr Mira Serda, a Russian national residing in the UAE. Both are charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering. Besciokov is additionally charged with conspiracy to violate sanctions and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business.
Court documents reveal that from 2019 to 2025, the two defendants controlled and operated Garantex, knowingly facilitating money laundering while actively concealing illicit activities. Despite being sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on April 5, 2022, the defendants continued conducting transactions with U.S. entities and restructured operations to evade sanctions—including changing cryptocurrency wallet addresses daily to avoid detection and blocking by U.S.-based cryptocurrency exchanges.
U.S. law enforcement has seized the domains Garantex.org, Garantex.io, and Garantex.academy, frozen over $26 million in funds used for money laundering, and obtained server copies containing customer and accounting databases. If convicted, both defendants face a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
