The best crime fighting office in India has said that its authorities have arrested an cryptocurrency exchange administrator accused by the United States of money laundering and violating sanctions.
The United States, Germany and Finland has eliminated the online infrastructure used by the exchange of Russian cryptocurrency Guarantx, the US justice of the United States said in a statement last week, adding that two exchange administrators had been charged.
One of these administrators was Aleksej Bisciokov, 46, a Russian resident and a Lithuanian national who was accused of money laundering and also faced accusations of violation of sanctions and exploitation of a money transmission company without license, the Ministry of Justice announced on Friday.
The American agency also said that another Russian national resident and the United Arab Emirates, Aleksandr Mira Serda, was also accused of money laundering and conspiracy.
A domain destination page seized by the United States Ministry of Justice and the secret services in the midst of allegations that the site facilitated money laundering. (Supplied: American justice department))
“According to court documents, between 2019 and 2025, Bisciokov and Mira Serda have checked and exploited Guarantx”, the United States Ministry of Justice said in the press release Last week.
“Garoutex has received hundreds of millions of criminal products and has been used to facilitate various crimes, including piracy, ransomware, terrorism and drug trafficking, often with a substantial impact for American victims.
“According to the indictment, Bisciokov and Mira Serda knew that the criminal product was bleached by Garantinex and took measures to hide the facilitation of illegal activities on its platform.
“”Since April 2019, Garantex has treated at least $ 96 billion ($ 152.5 billion) in cryptocurrency transactions.“”
Wednesday, Mr. Bisciokov was arrested in the state of southern India in Kerala, said the Central Office of India’s Survey (CBI), adding that he was wanted by the American authorities.
The CBI said that at the request of Washington, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a provisional arrest warrant issued.
He also said that Mr. Bisciokov planned to flee India, but he was not immediately clear why he was in the country. Washington should continue the extradition of Mr. Bisciokov.
“I can confirm that Leksej Bisciokov, one of the guarantors, was arrested in India at the request of the United States,” a spokesperson for the United States Ministry of Justice on Wednesday.
The ministry also declared last week that on March 6, the American police, including the country’s secret services, seized three areas of website which were used to support the operations of Garantex.
“The entry of these domains will prevent these sites from being used for money laundering and additional crimes,” said the ministry’s press release.
“People visiting these sites will now see a message indicating that the site has been seized by the police.
“The American law authorities have obtained separately from the previous copies of Guarantx servers, including customer and accounting databases.
The United States Ministry of Justice indicates that accusations of conspiracy and money laundering have maximum prison penalties of 20 years, while the accusation of conspiracy to exploit a company of transmission of money without license has a maximum prison sentence of five years.
Reuters
