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On March 12, the Indian police arrested Aleksej Besciokov who is wanted in the United States on a number of charges, including committing money laundering and operating an unlicensed crypto exchange.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s domestic crime investigation agency, released a press release that mentions that Besciokov is a Lithuanian citizen and is wanted for trial before the US District Court for the Eastern District Court of Virginia.

As per the US Secret Service , Besciokov operated Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange, to launder the proceeds of criminal activity worth millions of dollars during 2019-2025. Besciokov was aware that criminal proceeds were being laundered through Garantex and tried to conceal the facilitation of illegal activities on the crypto exchange.

The Garantex crypto exchange facilitated major laundering for prominent ransomware groups such as Conti, Black Basta, and Play.

The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Garantex in April 2022 for violating anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) obligations. The European Union also sanctioned the exchange on February 24.

On March 6, Garantex announced a temporary suspension of all its services. On March 7, US law enforcement froze illicit funds on the exchange worth more than $26 million that were used to facilitate money laundering at Garantex.

A Russian resident, Besciokov was vacationing with his family in the southern Indian state of Kerala and had been planning to flee the country. The Indian authorities will now extradite him to the US.