A coalition of worldwide legislation enforcement businesses has seized the web site related to the cryptocurrency trade Garantex (“garantex[.]org”), practically three years after the service was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Division in April 2022.
“The area for Garantex has been seized by the USA Secret Service pursuant to a seizure warrant obtained by the USA Lawyer’s Workplace for the Jap District of Virginia underneath the authority of 18 U.S.C. §§ 981 and 982,” reads a seizure banner on the web site.
The operation was carried out in coordination with the U.S. Division of Justice’s Felony Division, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, the Dutch Nationwide Police, the German Federal Felony Police Workplace (Bundeskriminalamt aka BKA), the Frankfurt Common Prosecutor’s Workplace, the Finnish Nationwide Bureau of Investigation, and the Estonian Nationwide Felony Police.
Based in 2019, Garantex was beforehand subject to U.S. sanctions for facilitating transactions from darknet markets and illicit actors corresponding to Hydra and Conti. In late 2023, sanctions have been additionally imposed towards a Russian nationwide named Ekaterina Zhdanova for her position in laundering the proceeds of ransomware teams like Ryuk by way of Garantex.
The event comes weeks after the European Union announced similar sanctions towards the crypto trade late final month for its shut affiliation with already sanctioned Russian banks corresponding to Sberbank, T-Financial institution, and Alfa-Financial institution, prompting Tether to dam its crypto wallets.
In a message posted on its Telegram channel, Garantex said: “Pricey customers! We’ve dangerous information. Tether has entered the warfare towards the Russian crypto market and blocked our wallets value greater than 2.5 billion rubles.”
“We’re quickly suspending all providers, together with cryptocurrency withdrawals, whereas our whole crew solves this downside. We’re preventing and won’t hand over!”
The Moscow-headquartered trade has since openly published the listing of cryptocurrency wallets which have been blocked by Tether.
