India apprehends Garantex admin at US behest

TechCrunch reports that Russian cryptocurrency exchange Garantex had its co-founder and one of its administrators Aleksej Besciokov arrested by Indian law enforcement following a request from the U.S., which had accused Besciokov and fellow administrator Aleksandr Mira Serda of enabling the money laundering activities of state-backed threat actors and other cybercriminals.

Such a development comes as Garantex had its websites sequestered as part of a joint U.S. and European law enforcement clampdown that coincided with the freezing of the cryptocurrency exchange's assets exceeding $26 million.

Despite halting operations following such actions, Garantex sought to discuss measures on addressing blocked assets with customers via face-to-face meetings earlier this week.

"Garantex is not abandoning its obligations to its users and intends to fully compensate for the blocked user assets at the expense of its existing assets in Russian Federation territory through a procedure similar to the financial institution rehabilitation procedure," said the exchange, which declared ending its operations following the completion of the rehabilitation efforts.