Garantex Operator Aleksej Besciokov Arrested in India: Report

Aleksej Besciokov, a Lithuanian national and Russian resident, has been arrested in the Indian state of Kerala on charges of money laundering conspiracy, conspiracy to violate sanctions, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business. The arrest was made while Besciokov was vacationing with his family on India's southern coast.

Besciokov is one of the operators of sanctioned Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, which was seized by a coalition of international law enforcement agencies from the US, Germany, and Finland last week. The agencies froze nearly $28 million in crypto tied to the exchange and seized its domains and servers.

Garantex was sanctioned by the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) in 2022 for knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware actors, including Conti and Black Basta, and darknet markets like Hydra. The largest such market in the world before its closure in 2022.

In addition to facilitating money laundering for criminals, including North Korea's in-house hacking squad the Lazarus Group, which was behind the massive $1.5 billion Bybit heist last month, Garantex reportedly played a large role in sanctions evasion. Upscale sanctions evasion services like the TGR Group, which cater to Russian oligarchs, have been connected to the exchange.

US prosecutors charged Besciokov and another of Garantex's operators, 40-year-old Russian Aleksandr Mira Serda, a resident of the United Arab Emirates, with money laundering conspiracy. Besciokov is currently listed on the US Secret Service's Most Wanted list.

No comment was provided by either the Kerala police or the US Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding Besciokov's reported arrest. CoinDesk has also not received a response to its request for information about the arrest.