India has arrested a man wanted by the US in connection with the Garantex cryptocurrency exchange. The arrest of Aleksej Besciokov comes less than a week after the US, Finland and Germany took down the money laundering site and seized its assets. Those assets included servers, customer and accounting databases and $26 million in funds.
Besciokov, a Lithuanian national and Russian resident, was indicted by the US Justice Department last week. This arrest came as a surprise to many, as Besciokov was thought to be in hiding in Russia. Instead he was found in Varkala, India, holidaying with his family. He was arrested by officers from India’s Criminal Board of Investigation. He is now being held pending an extradition request from the US.
The indictment was filed by the US against Besciokov and his co-founder of Garantex, Aleksandr Mira Serda. The US claims that Garantex processed US$96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions between 2019 and 2025.
It makes the cryptocurrency exchange one of, if not the biggest, involved in money laundering. The indictment also claims that Besciokov and Serda violated sanctions on Garantex by using the exchange to pay for services and infrastructure.
The indictment also lists several instances of the proceeds of cybercrime being laundered through the exchange. It says that Besciokov and Serda knew about this and allowed the monies from cybercrimes to be laundered through Garantex.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
This is an unexpected bonus for the US. It is rare for an indictment to be issued for a cybercriminal, only to have them arrested on holiday less than a week later. It is even rarer for someone to make the most wanted list and be arrested in such a short period of time.
Why Besciokov thought he was safe to travel to a country with an extradition treaty with the US remains a mystery. He must have known he would be high on everyone’s watch list.
Attention will now turn to his co-accused, Serda. He is still at large and will be looking to salvage what he can from the demise of Garantex. He has links to many of the largest cybercriminals such as North Korea’s Lazarus Group. It means that there will be support to help him reestablish a replacement cryptocurrency operation. After all, crime never stops, and criminals need to launder the proceeds of crime.
