The U.S. Secret Service, working with a coalition of worldwide regulation enforcement businesses, has taken down and seized the web site of Garantex, a Russian cryptocurrency alternate accused of being related to darknet markets and ransomware hackers.
On Thursday, the official Garantex web site was changed with a discover saying the alternate’s area has been seized by the Secret Service following a warrant by the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Virginia.
That is the most recent motion taken by Western governments in opposition to the Moscow-based alternate.
Final month, the European Union additionally sanctioned Garantex as, saying it’s “carefully related to EU-sanctioned Russian banks.” This was a part of a package deal of sanctions in opposition to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
In 2022, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Garantex, alleging that greater than $100 million in transactions finished on the alternate “are related to illicit actors and darknet markets,” together with the infamous Russian ransomware gang Conti, and the darknet market Hydra.
Nate Herring, a spokesperson for the U.S. Secret Service, confirmed to TechCrunch in a press release that the company “seized web site domains related to the administration and operation of Russian cryptocurrency alternate, Garantex as a part of an ongoing investigation,” whereas declining to offer additional remark.
The takedown discover, seen by TechCrunch, mentioned that the operation was performed in coordination with the U.S. Division of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Europol, the Dutch Nationwide Police, the German Federal Legal Police Workplace (Bundeskriminalamt or BKA), the Frankfurt Common Prosecutor’s Workplace, the Finnish Nationwide Bureau of Investigation, and the Estonian Nationwide Legal Police.
TechCrunch reached out to all these organizations for remark. On the time of writing, solely the FBI responded, declining to remark.
TechCrunch additionally reached out to Garantex through the official electronic mail addresses listed on the location earlier than the seizure, in addition to by way of the corporate’s Telegram account. Garantex didn’t reply to those messages.
TechCrunch verified the web site seizure discover by analyzing Garantex’s internet-facing area data. As of Thursday, Garantex’s net area is now pointing to servers identified to be managed by the Secret Service. The identical server can also be host to a number of different web site seizure notices carried out by the Secret Service lately.
Following the seizure, Garantex made no point out of the regulation enforcement operation in its official Telegram channels. On Thursday morning, Garantex announced that it was “suspending all companies, together with cryptocurrency withdrawals,” in response to a machine translation of the announcement.
The choice got here after stablecoin issuer Tether froze $28 million value of its cryptocurrency on Garantex.
“We’ve got unhealthy information,” Garantex wrote. “We’re combating and won’t hand over! Please observe that each one [Tether] in Russian wallets is at present below risk.”
