‘Among the most prolific money laundering platforms’ The mysterious prison death of a Russia-based crypto kingpin arrested in India at Washington’s request

The Russian branch of Transparency International has published a major new investigation into Garantex, which researchers have named as the largest Russian crypto exchange used for money laundering and sanctions evasion. In spring 2025, U.S. authorities announced the shutdown of Garantex and secured the arrest of its chief technical administrator. But he died in an Indian prison before he could be extradited to the United States, and the exchange itself has reemerged as a decentralized “crypto laundromat” that Transparency believes operates “with the tacit approval or protection” of the Russian authorities. Meduza shares a summary of Transparency’s report.

On August 31, 46-year-old Aleksej Besciokov, the alleged administrator of the crypto exchange Garantex, died in an Indian prison. His death was reported by Sergey Mendeleev, considered the main architect of Garantex. “It feels like I’ve known him all my life. It’s monstrous that it ended this way,” he wrote on Telegram.

Garantex was launched in 2019. Although it was registered in Estonia, its operations were largely tied to Russia, according to reporting by Estonian outlet ERR. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the exchange became a crucial tool for circumventing Western sanctions and financial restrictions, including some imposed by the Russian government itself.

“Garantex found a niche as a way to convert rubles into other currencies, which became more difficult amid sanctions on Russian banks and Moscow’s own capital controls after the invasion of Ukraine, and to use cryptocurrencies to make foreign transfers,” the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) wrote in a March 2024 report.

According to U.S. authorities, the platform also facilitated transactions for criminal networks worldwide. It was linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and Hydra, the world’s largest darknet drug marketplace. In 2022, the U.S. Treasury blacklisted Garantex alongside Hydra, which was shut down shortly after.

Despite sanctions, Garantex continued operating by relocating its infrastructure to Russia. Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis reported that between 2019 and 2025, the exchange processed $96 billion in transactions, at least $1.3 billion of which were connected to criminal activity. That figure amounts to 1.35 percent of Garantex’s total volume, nearly 10 times higher than what’s typical for exchanges that follow compliance rules.

“Garantex was among the most prolific money laundering platforms in the crypto ecosystem,” Chainalysis asserted.

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In February 2025, the European Union added Garantex to its sanctions list, banning any cooperation with the exchange. Two weeks later, in March, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had managed to disrupt Garantex: authorities in the U.S., Germany, and Finland had blocked its domains and seized its servers.

That same month, the DOJ indicted two Garantex executives in absentia: Aleksandr Mira Serda (formerly Ntifo-Siaw), identified as the exchange’s commercial director, and Aleksej Besciokov, named as its primary technical administrator. Both faced up to 20 years in prison on charges of conspiracy to launder money and evade sanctions.

A week later, news broke that Besciokov had been arrested in India at the request of U.S. authorities. A Lithuanian citizen who had been living in Russia, he was detained in the state of Kerala in southwestern India, where he was vacationing with his family. Six months later, he died in prison. The cause of death remains unknown. The anonymous Telegram channel VChK-OGPU claimed Besciokov died shortly after agreeing to be extradited to the United States.

His death wasn’t the first among Garantex’s leadership. In 2021, Stanislav Drugalev, who is believed to have co-founded Garantex alongside Sergey Mendeleev, died in Dubai. His widow later suggested that his death may have been criminal in nature. Following Drugalev’s death, Mendeleev was removed from Garantex’s shareholder list, and his stake was reportedly taken over by Irina Chernyavskaya, the girlfriend of businessman Pavel Karavatsky.

As the ICIJ noted, Karavatsky was on the board of Peresvet Bank in 2017, when it came under the control of Russian oil giant Rosneft. Around the same time, former FSB General Oleg Feoktistov became an adviser to the bank’s president. Feoktistov is believed to have orchestrated the criminal case against former Russian economy minister Alexey Ulyukaev.

ICIJ’s investigation also found links between Karavatsky and Garantex through the company behind Garantex Academy, an educational initiative for aspiring crypto investors. One of the company’s co-owners was Aleksandr Mira Serda (then using the name Ntifo-Siaw), who was in turn connected to Alexander Tsarapkin, a convicted gang leader sentenced to seven years for extortion.

Like Besciokov, Mira Serda was placed on a U.S. wanted list in 2025 over his ties to Garantex. However, unlike Besciokov, he avoided arrest and, according to Transparency International Russia, continues to operate out of the United Arab Emirates.

Transparency reports that Garantex itself has not disappeared but rather evolved. Its leadership has launched a series of new ventures, which together form a decentralized money-laundering infrastructure “sustained by technical obfuscation and [governments’] tolerance.”

One of these projects is Exved, identified by Transparency as Garantex’s “successor.” Created by Sergey Mendeleev, Exved markets itself as “the first exchange for importers and exporters.” Like its predecessor, Exved facilitates the movement of money out of Russia through a network of opaque intermediaries. The scheme works as follows: a Russian importer signs a contract with a foreign intermediary, transfers rubles to the intermediary’s Russian bank account, and the intermediary then pays the importer’s foreign supplier in hard currency.

Transparency’s investigation revealed that Exved has played a role in importing dual-use goods — including microchips and telecommunications equipment — from China and Taiwan into Russia. But Exved isn’t the only descendant of the shuttered Garantex. Others include Grinex, MKAN Coin, and Indefiti — projects also launched by individuals from the Garantex team, all drawing on the original exchange’s infrastructure and technical expertise to create a decentralized, cross-border laundering network.

“Garantex’s metamorphosis into Exved and its integration into Russia’s experimental cross-border financial schemes suggest more than opportunistic evasion, it signals a systemic laundering architecture operating under tacit or active federal government enablement. This raises urgent questions about financial integrity and global enforcement gaps,” Transparency concludes.