Russian mafia ties exposed as Polish exchange Zondacrypto failures continue

Zondacrypto, arguably the largest exchange on the Polish coin market, has been under the control of a notorious Russian gang, according to Poland’s counterintelligence.

The troubled trading platform, which halted withdrawals this month amid insolvency fears, is at the focal point of a heated political clash in Warsaw over crypto regulation.

Zonda allegedly run by the Tambov crime syndicate

Poland’s leading digital-asset exchange, Zondacrypto, has been controlled by the Tambov gang, one of Russia’s oldest and largest organized crime groups.

The Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza made the claim this week, citing information from the country’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) in a report widely quoted by Russian media.

According to a memo circulated by the civilian intelligence service, the Russian mobsters acquired a controlling stake in the exchange back in 2018.

They bought it through a Polish intermediary when the company was known as BitBay and was experiencing difficulties, the newspaper detailed in its article.

The crypto exchange, one of the largest in Central and Eastern Europe, later relocated to Estonia and obtained a license from the Baltic state, but remained focused on Polish customers.

The shares were officially purchased by three companies registered in the UAE, headed by BitBay co-founder Sylwester Suszek, GW also wrote.

However, the deal was financed by the Russian gang, and the ABW believes that the “Tambov mafia” paid “tens of millions of euros” on two occasions to take over the platform.

A source quoted by the publication revealed that Zonda’s shareholders were introduced to the Russian criminals by a Polish businessman who worked with them in the fuel market.

Known in Russian as “Tambovskaya Bratva,” the St. Petersburg gang was established in the late 1980s, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It was named after the Tambov Oblast, as it was founded mostly by men from that region, and became one of Russia’s largest and most powerful crime groups in the following years.

One of its founders and leader Vladimir Kumarin (Barsukov) was sentenced to 24 years in a maximum-security prison in 2019 over his role in creating the criminal organization.

The Tambov maintained its influence until the late 2000s, Bits.media noted, and is believed to have been well connected with political figures, including from the country’s ruling elite.

What happened with Zondacrypto?

The troubles at Zonda started earlier this month, when the exchange stopped processing withdrawals amid suspected issues with liquidity.

Several Polish news outlets quoted a report by the market intelligence firm Recoveris, according to which the platform’s reserves had dropped by over 99%.

The company’s current CEO, Przemysław Kral, initially rejected these claims but eventually admitted the exchange didn’t have access to a wallet holding 4,500 BTC.

He blamed Sylwester Suszek for never handing over the keys when transferring authority to Zonda’s new executive team a few years ago. Suszek disappeared in February 2022.

Kral is now also presumed missing, after remaining silent since mid-April, when he last commented on the crypto firm’s state on social media.

Resignations have left it without management, its website is now mostly unavailable, and its user data may have ended up on the darknet, according to some reports.

Polish prosecutors, who launched an investigation into the crash, established that around 30,000 people may have lost more than $95 million when the exchange halted client transactions.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Donald Tusk alleged that Zondacrypto has sponsored political events and organizations to lobby against a government-proposed crypto bill.

The draft law put forward by the Tusk-led center-left coalition has been returned twice by President Karol Nawrocki, who is backed by the right-wing opposition parties.

The ruling majority in the Sejm recently failed again to defeat his veto. Poland must regulate its crypto space in accordance with the EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) rules by July.

The standoff sparked a bitter political clash in Warsaw, with the Polish PM accusing the head of state and his allies in parliament of serving Russian interests.

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