A coalition of international law enforcement has seized a website related to the cryptocurrency exchange Garantex (“Garantex”)[.]org”), almost three years after the service was approved by the US Treasury in April 2022.
“The Garantex domain was seized by the US Secret Service under the authority of 18 USC § 981 and 982, based on a seizure warrant obtained by the US Lawyer’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.”
The operation was carried out in cooperation with the US Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Federal Investigation Bureau, European and Dutch National Police, German Federal Criminal Police Agency (Bundeskriminalamt aka BKA), General Frankfurt Office, National Investigation Bureau of Finland and Estonian National Criminal Police.
Founded in 2019, Garantex was previously subject to US sanctions to promote transactions from illegal actors such as Darknet Markets and Hydra and Conti. In late 2023, sanctions were imposed on a Russian citizen named Ekaterina Zhdanova for the role of washing revenues for ransomware groups like Ryuk via Galantex.
The development comes weeks after the European Union announced similar sanctions on crypto exchanges late last month for close ties with already-authorized Russian banks such as Sberbank, T-Bank and Alfa-Bank, urging Tether to block crypto wallets.
In a message posted to the Telegram channel, Garantex said: “Dear User! We have bad news. Tether took part in the war with the Russian crypto market and blocked more than 2.5 billion rubles of wallet.”
“We are temporarily suspending all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals, but our entire team will solve this issue. We are fighting and we will not give up!”
The Moscow-covered exchange has since publicly published a list of cryptocurrency wallets blocked by Tether.
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