According to Cointelegraph, Global Ledger found that the active reserves of the crypto exchange Garantex exceeded $15 million, and some of the funds were being transferred. The report said that a dormant Garantex Ethereum wallet began to accumulate ETH and transferred $2.3 million of ETH to Tornado Cash. The wallet still holds $6.1 million of ETH.
The same pattern was seen in Bitcoin holdings, with about 2.2 BTC being bridged to the TRON network and then partially transferred to Grinex. Lex Fisun, co-founder and CEO of Global Ledger, said this indicated a failure in sanctions enforcement.
On March 6, Tether froze $27 million of USDT on Garantex, causing the exchange to suspend operations. In April 2022, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on Garantex for the first time, and the European Union will follow suit on February 24, 2025.
On March 12, Garantex founder Aleksej Bešciokov was arrested while on vacation in India and could be extradited to the United States to face multiple conspiracy charges. Russian Finance Ministry official Osman Kabaloev said the country should develop its own stablecoin and plans to launch a cryptocurrency exchange.
