The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with international law enforcement agencies, has seized the website of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency exchange accused of links to darknet markets and ransomware hackers. This takedown occurred on Thursday following a warrant issued by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
U.S. Secret Service seizes Garantex website amid criminal ties
The official Garantex website was replaced with a notice confirming the seizure of the exchange’s domain. Nate Herring, a spokesperson for the U.S. Secret Service, stated that the agency “seized website domains associated with the administration and operation of [Garantex] as part of an ongoing investigation.”
This operation involved multiple agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Europol, the Dutch National Police, the German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt), the Frankfurt General Prosecutor’s Office, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the Estonian National Criminal Police.
Garantex has faced significant scrutiny from Western governments. In August 2023, the European Union sanctioned the exchange, accusing it of circumventing sanctions and maintaining close associations with sanctioned Russian banks. Previously, in 2022, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Garantex, alleging that over $100 million in transactions on the exchange were linked to illicit actors and darknet markets, including the Russian ransomware gang Conti and the darknet market Hydra.
U.S. officials claimed at that time that cybercriminals utilized Garantex to cash out illegally obtained cryptocurrency, with nearly $6 million traced back to Conti.
Response from Garantex
On the same day as the seizure, Garantex reported via its Telegram channel that stablecoin operator Tether had frozen over 2.5 billion rubles (approximately $28 million) within its wallets. Garantex warned users, stating, “We have bad news. Tether has entered the war against the Russian crypto market and blocked our wallets.”
The exchange announced it would suspend all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals, while they addressed the issue, asserting, “We are fighting and will not give up! Please note that all USDT in Russian wallets is now under threat.”
Founded in 2019, Garantex has become one of Russia’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, particularly prominent following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The platform allowed customers to bypass sanctions on Russian banks by exchanging rubles for cryptocurrency at its offices in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
U.S. and European law enforcement agencies have continuously accused Garantex of facilitating activities for cybercriminals, gangs, and designated terrorist organizations.
TechCrunch verified the website seizure notice through an analysis of Garantex’s internet-facing domain records, confirming that the domain now points to servers controlled by the Secret Service, which has hosted multiple other seizure notices in recent years.
Following the seizure, Garantex did not reference the operation on its official channels and instead communicated its service suspension through its Telegram account.
Featured image credit: Screenshot/TechBriefly
