Indian authorities detain Aleksej Besciokov, co-founder of Garantex, according to reports

Police in India have taken into custody Aleksej Besciokov, a co-founder of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency trading platform that has been blacklisted by the U.S. and the European Union for its role in money laundering activities.

According to reports from TechCrunch and Brian Krebs, Besciokov, who holds Lithuanian nationality, was apprehended in Varkala, Kerala under India's extradition law.

The arrest took place at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday after the Patiala House Court in New Delhi issued an arrest warrant. It is anticipated that Besciokov will be presented before the court on March 14.

Although Indian authorities have not revealed whether the arrest is directly related to Besciokov's indictment in the U.S., his status as a potential extraditee suggests that he does not currently face charges in India.

Garantex ceased its services on March 6, soon after Tether blocked nearly 2.5 billion USDT in Russian rubles.

Indictment by the DOJ and international sanctions

Besciokov's arrest follows the unsealing of an indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice, which accuses him and another alleged co-founder of Garantex, Aleksandr Mira Serda, of conspiring to commit money laundering.

Besciokov also faces charges for breaching U.S. sanctions and operating an unlicensed money transmission business. Each charge carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, with an additional five years for violating the unlicensed business regulations.

Garantex, established in 2019, was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury in April 2022 for handling illicit funds tied to hacking, ransomware, terrorism, and drug trafficking. Despite the sanctions, the exchange is believed to have facilitated over $60 billion worth of transactions.

International crackdown on Garantex

Besciokov, known by the hacker alias "proforg," is alleged to have overseen Garantex's technical infrastructure and approved transactions associated with North Korean cybercriminals and Russian elites evading sanctions.

U.S. authorities allege that he and Serda deliberately laundered illicit funds and took measures to conceal Garantex's activities, including shifting operational cryptocurrency wallets daily to evade detection.

As part of a coordinated international operation, authorities from the U.S., Germany, and Finland seized servers hosting Garantex's operations, while the U.S. Secret Service froze over $26 million linked to the exchange.

Law enforcement also obtained copies of Garantex's customer and accounting databases, potentially revealing more illicit activities.

According to sources close to the investigation, Besciokov was apprehended while on vacation with his family in India. Following his arrest, he appeared before a local court and is expected to be transferred to Delhi.

The U.S. government is likely to seek his extradition to face charges in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the indictment was filed.

Mira Serda, a Russian national residing in the United Arab Emirates, remains at large. The DOJ alleges that he acted as Garantex’s chief commercial officer, managing the exchange’s business operations while aiding in the laundering of illicit funds.