Following takedown operation, Garantex invites customers to ‘face-to-face’ Moscow meeting

It has not been a good week for Russian crypto exchange Garantex. Firstly, on Thursday, stablecoin issuer Tether blocked access to Garantex’s wallets that held around $28 million of the crypto exchange’s funds. On the same day, an international law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Secret Service seized Garantex’s official websites. At the time, Garantex made no mention of this operation in its official Telegram channels; instead, the company announced it was “suspending all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals.” Then, on Friday, the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against two of the exchange’s administrators, Aleksej Besciokov, and Aleksandr Mira Serda, accusing the pair of facilitating money laundering on their platform on behalf of cybercriminals and terrorists. U.S. prosecutors also said it froze over $26 million in Tether and Bitcoin that were used to facilitate money laundering, which explained what happened with the Tether wallets. As of Saturday, Gara ... Read full article.