The U.S. Secret Service, with international law enforcement, seized and removed the website of Russian crypto exchange Garantex, citing alleged ties to sanctioned Russian banks and criminal groups.

The Garantex homepage, which is now timing out, had previously said that the platform’s domain had been taken by the agency, which received a warrant from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

A spokesperson for the Secret Service, Nate Herring, said that the seizure was part of an “ongoing investigation,” and that the agency would “release additional information when available.”

The action follows shortly after stablecoin issuer Tether froze $28 million in USDT on the exchange on Thursday.

Garantex has been a target of Western European and U.S. investigators, who say it has worked with darknet and ransomware groups. 

In a note on its Telegram channel, Garantex said that Tether blocked exchange wallets holding more than 2.5 billion rubles ($25 million) and that it had “temporarily suspended all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals while our entire team solves this problem.” 

“We are fighting and will not give up,” the note said, accusing Tether.

In April 2022, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control working with the FBI and Department of Justice, among other U.S. agencies, and German police sanctioned Garantex.

OFAC alleged that more than $100 million in transactions on the exchange were “associated with illicit actors and darknet markets including nearly $6 million from the Russian RaaS gang Conti and approximately $2.6 million from Hydra,” a darknet market.

Edited by Sebastian Sinclair

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