US seizes the website of Russian crypto exchange Garantex

The U.S. Secret Service seized the website of the Russian exchange Garantex in collaboration with the FBI, Europol, and the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division. The exchange has frequently been associated with ransomware hackers and darknet markets. 

The official Garantex webpage has now been replaced with a notice that says, “The domain of Garantex has been seized by the United States Secret Service pursuant to a seizure warrant.” The warrant was obtained by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. 

According to the message on the Garantex website, various other law enforcement agencies were also involved in the operation. These include the Dutch National Police, the Frankfurt General Prosecutor’s Office, the Estonian National Criminal Police, the Finnish National Bureau of Investigation, and the German Federal Criminal Police Office. 

The exchange’s web domain now points to servers owned by the Secret Service, ns2.usssdomainseizure.com and ns1.usssdomainseizure.com. These servers also host seizure notices for various other websites closed by the agency.

Garantex has long been under scrutiny. Last month, the European Union sanctioned the exchange due to its close association with certain Russian banks. This sanction came three years after Russia’s conflict with Ukraine started. Similarly, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned the exchange in 2022 for being associated with “illicit actors and darknet markets” such as Conti, a Russian ransomware gang, and Hydra, a darknet market.

Tether froze USDT worth millions on Garantex before the website’s closure

Earlier today, Tether froze $27 million worth of USDT on the sanctioned exchange, after which the exchange temporarily suspended its operations, including crypto withdrawals. 

The exchange made the announcement on its official Telegram channel. However, it did not mention the law enforcement operation. A machine translation of the announcement said, “We have bad news. Tether has entered the war against the Russian crypto market and blocked our wallets worth more than 2.5 billion rubles.”

Garantex issued a warning to its users, mentioning that “all USDT in Russian wallets is currently under threat.” The exchange further said that it would not give up and continue fighting. Later, the exchange published a list of wallets blocked by Tether.

Even though Garantex is not a major exchange, its closure significantly impacts the Russian crypto market. The deputy head of the Russian parliament’s committee on information policy posted on his Telegram channel, “for sure not the last case when Western countries put pressure.” He further added that it is not possible for Western countries to fully “block this market for Russia.”

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