{"id":2515,"date":"2025-03-12T03:05:21","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T03:05:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/12\/alleged-co-founder-of-garantex-arrested-in-india\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T03:05:21","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T03:05:21","slug":"alleged-co-founder-of-garantex-arrested-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/12\/alleged-co-founder-of-garantex-arrested-in-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged Co-Founder of Garantex Arrested in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alleged Co-Founder of Garantex Arrested in India
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Authorities in India today arrested the alleged co-founder of Garantex<\/strong>, a cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2022 for facilitating tens of billions of dollars in money laundering by transnational criminal and cybercriminal organizations. Sources close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity the Lithuanian national Aleksej Besciokov<\/strong>, 46, was apprehended while vacationing on the coast of India with his family.<\/p>\n

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Aleksej Be\u0161ciokov, \u201cproforg,\u201d \u201ciram\u201d. Image: U.S. Secret Service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

On March 7, the U.S. Department of Justice<\/strong> (DOJ) unsealed an indictment<\/a> against Besciokov and the other alleged co-founder of Garantex, Aleksandr Mira Serda<\/strong>, 40, a Russian national living in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n

Launched in 2019, Garantex was first sanctioned<\/a> by the U.S. Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control in April 2022 for receiving hundreds of millions in criminal proceeds, including funds used to facilitate hacking, ransomware, terrorism and drug trafficking. Since those penalties were levied, Garantex has processed more than $60 billion, according to the blockchain analysis company Elliptic.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cGarantex has been used in sanctions evasion by Russian elites, as well as to launder proceeds of crime including ransomware, darknet market trade and thefts attributed to North Korea\u2019s Lazarus Group,\u201d Elliptic wrote in a blog post<\/a>. \u201cGarantex has also been implicated in enabling Russian oligarchs to move their wealth out of the country, following the invasion of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The DOJ alleges Besciokov was Garantex\u2019s primary technical administrator and responsible for obtaining and maintaining critical Garantex infrastructure, as well as reviewing and approving transactions. Mira Serda is allegedly Garantex\u2019s co-founder and chief commercial officer.<\/p>\n

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Image: elliptic.co<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In conjunction with the release of the indictments, German and Finnish law enforcement seized servers hosting Garantex\u2019s operations. A \u201cmost wanted\u201d notice<\/a> published by the U.S. Secret Service<\/strong> states that U.S. authorities separately obtained earlier copies of Garantex\u2019s servers, including customer and accounting databases. Federal investigators say they also froze over $26 million in funds used to facilitate Garantex\u2019s money laundering activities.<\/p>\n

Besciokov was arrested within the past 24 hours while vacationing with his family in Varkala, a major coastal city in the southwest Indian state of Kerala. An officer with the local police department in Varkala confirmed Besciokov\u2019s arrest, and said the suspect will appear in a Delhi court on March 14 to face charges.<\/p>\n

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Varkala Beach in Kerala, India. Image: Shutterstock, Dmitry Rukhlenko.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/span>The DOJ\u2019s indictment says Besciokov went by the hacker handle \u201cproforg<\/strong>.\u201d This nickname corresponds to the administrator of a 20-year-old Russian language forum dedicated to nudity and crudity called \u201cudaff<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Besciokov and Mira Serda are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Besciokov is also charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the International Economic Emergency Powers Act\u2014which also carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in person\u2014and with conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\n BrianKrebs
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\nGo to krebsonsecurity<\/a>
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Alleged Co-Founder of Garantex Arrested in India Authorities in India today arrested the alleged co-founder of Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2022 for facilitating tens of billions of dollars in money laundering by transnational criminal and cybercriminal organizations. Sources close to the investigation told KrebsOnSecurity the Lithuanian national Aleksej Besciokov, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[917,918,919,920,55,190,231,690,906],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-2515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aleksandr-mira-serda","category-aleksej-besciokov","category-elliptic","category-garantex","category-krebsonsecurity","category-neer-do-well-news","category-ransomware","category-u-s-department-of-justice","category-u-s-secret-service","tag-krebsonsecurity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}