A 46-year-old Lithuanian citizen, Aleksey Beschokov, who graduated from Moscow State University, was arrested in India at the request of the US. He is suspected of money laundering, violating sanctions, and conducting business without a license.
Conflicts in the cryptocurrency market
It is believed that the arrested individual is one of the administrators of the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange, which stopped providing cryptocurrency to Russian users. Over 2.5 billion rubles are frozen in his accounts.
Aleksey Beschokov, "proforg", "iram". Photo: USA. Secret service.
According to investigation data, Beschokov is currently being held in Delhi and may soon be extradited to the US. Cybersecurity expert and former journalist of The Washington Post, Brian Krebs, reported that Beschokov was arrested by Indian law enforcement while vacationing with his family on the shores of India.
Investigations against Garantex exchange
So far, searches against the cryptocurrency exchange administrators have been conducted in "sleep" mode. However, on March 7, US, German, and Finnish special services conducted a joint operation, freezing the exchange, which accelerated the investigations.
Beschokov, who graduated from the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics at Moscow State University in 2002, was arrested based on a February ruling from a district court in Virginia. He is suspected of colluding with Russian Alexander Mira Ser, who lives in the UAE, for money laundering purposes. According to court documents, the exchange is located in Moscow.
According to the US Department of the Treasury, Beschokov was the chief technical officer of Garantex, responsible for verifying and approving transactions.
European Union sanctions
On February 24, the European Union announced new sanctions against the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange. It noted that the platform has close ties with Russian banks on the EU's "blacklist." Specifically, Garantex users can manage funds using Sberbank, T-Bank, and Alfa-bank cards.
Arrests in the cryptocurrency world
Recently, the US government has been intensifying its fight against cryptocurrency-related fraud. In December 2023, Dmitriy Vasilev, the former owner of the Wex cryptocurrency exchange in Poland, was arrested at the request of the US. Between $500 million and $1 billion was stolen through this exchange.
Additionally, in October 2023, Aleksey Andryunin, the head of the Gotbit cryptocurrency company, was arrested in Portugal.
Attempts to evade illegal operations and sanctions in the cryptocurrency world remain a focus for international governments. Measures being taken against Garantex and other cryptocurrency exchanges are observed to aim at increasing transparency in the cryptocurrency market.
