Indian authorities on Wednesday announced the arrest of Aleksej Besciokov, the co-founder of sanctioned crypto exchange Garantex—and alleged money launderer.

In a Wednesday post on X, India’s Central Bureau of Investigation said it had arrested Besciokov, 46, in the city of Thiruvananthapuram. 

Besciokov allegedly co-founded Russian crypto exchange Garantex, which U.S. authorities say has ties to sanctioned banks and criminal groups.

The CBI said in its announcement that Besciokov was “planning to flee the country.” He was arrested following a request from American authorities. 

U.S. feds last week seized and took down the Garantex website. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, FBI, and Department of Justice, along with German police, sanctioned Garantex in 2022 for allegedly laundering stolen funds. 

A March 7 indictment against Besciokov alleges that the Lithuanian citizen and his co-defendents “knew that criminal proceeds were being laundered through Garantex,” yet continued to turn a blind eye.

EU Includes Crypto Exchange Garantex in Its New Russian Sanctions Package

The European Council has sanctioned Moscow-based cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, with the measure coming as part of the EU’s 16th package of sanctions against Russia. As outlined in its implementation notice, the EU is sanctioning Garantex because the exchange “is associated with Sberbank, T-Bank and Alfa-Bank”—all of which have been subject to EU sanctions since 2014. The notice states that customers of these three sanctioned banks “can gain access to the global financial system via Garantex,...

NewsLaw and Order
4 min read
Simon Chandler

In particular, feds allege that Besciokov knew North Korea-sponsored hackers, the Lazarus Group, used his exchange to obfuscate stolen funds. 

The DOJ did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for comment. 

Edited by Andrew Hayward

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