US charges Ukrainian and Russian nationals over $389 million crypto laundering operation

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia have charged two men with running the AudiA6 cryptocurrency laundering service that processed more than $389 million in illicit transactions since 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Thursday, June 11.

Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, a 37-year-old Ukrainian national, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, a 25-year-old Russian national, were arrested on June 10 in Batumi, Republic of Georgia, according to the DOJ press release. 

Both face conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and sting money laundering charges, each carrying up to 20 years in prison. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said it will seek their extradition.

How the AudiA6 service worked

The criminal complaint identifies both defendants as senior members of an organization operating under the name “AudiA6,” which prosecutors say ran a money laundering service and a cybercrime forum called Dark2Web. 

On that forum, the service openly advertised its willingness to obscure the origins of cryptocurrency traceable to criminal activity, charging fees of up to 5% per transaction, according to the DOJ.

Investigators found that roughly 10,333 Bitcoins flowed into wallets controlled by the operation since its launch. Over 393 BTC (worth approximately $19.2 million at the time of the transactions) out of that total came directly from darknet markets, ransomware groups, and other known criminal operations, the complaint states. 

Other illicit funds reached AudiA6 wallets through indirect channels.

How were the two members of the AudiA6 organization apprehended?

A multinational operation led to the arrests. It involved the U.S. Secret Service, IRS Criminal Investigation, Europol, Eurojust, and law enforcement from more than a dozen countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Poland, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

Georgian authorities provided details on the scope of the operation at a June 11 briefing attended by U.S. and Polish officials. Beka Kvitsiani, deputy chief of the Investigative Department at Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, said roughly 100 officers from three countries carried out searches at dozens of locations across Georgia, according to Civil Georgia. 

Authorities seized electronic devices, documentation, 173 vehicles allegedly purchased with laundered funds, real estate, and frozen bank accounts.

The servers and domains tied to the operation were targeted in the United States, Iceland, Germany, and France. Also, Telegram accounts linked to the network were blocked, cryptocurrency assets were frozen, and both the AudiA6 website and the Dark2Web forum were replaced with law enforcement seizure banners.

A pattern of cross-border crypto enforcement

In January, TRM Labs reported that illicit cryptocurrency flows hit a record $158 billion in 2025, up nearly 145% from the prior year. The firm attributed the increase partly to expanded sanctions designations and increased use of crypto by nation-state actors.

The arrest of Tkachuk and Ledenev is the latest in a series of international operations targeting cryptocurrency as a vehicle for moving illicit funds.

Earlier this year, the UK-led Operation Atlantic froze $12 million and identified over 20,000 victims of approval phishing scams across three countries, with on-the-ground support from exchanges including Binance, as Cryptopolitan has previously reported.

The AudiA6 prosecution is part of the push by U.S. and European agencies to dismantle the infrastructure that connects cybercriminals to the traditional financial system. The organization is linked to over 15 international cybercrime investigations, according to Europol analysis.

Tkachuk and Ledenev are still in Georgian custody. The extradition process to Pennsylvania has not yet begun. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benjamin D. Traster and Sima Kazmir, with support from the DOJ’s Office of International Affairs.

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