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It has not been a good week for Russian crypto exchange Garantex .
Firstly , on Thursday , stablecoin issuer Tetherblocked approach to Garantex ’s walletsthat contain around $ 28 million of the crypto exchange ’s funds . On the same day , an outside law enforcement operation led by the U.S. Secret Serviceseized Garantex ’s prescribed websites . At the time , Garantex made no mention of this surgical procedure in its prescribed Telegram channels ; instead , the companyannouncedit was “ suspend all services , let in cryptocurrency withdrawals . ”
Then , on Friday , the U.S. Justice Departmentannounced charge against two of the interchange ’s administrators , Aleksej Besciokov , and Aleksandr Mira Serda , accusing the pair of help money laundering on their platform on behalf of cybercriminals and terrorists . U.S. prosecutors also sound out it freeze out over $ 26 million in Tether and Bitcoin that were used to ease money laundering , which explained what hap with the Tether wallet .
As of Saturday , Garantex offer a potential life line to its customers — with a apprehension .
Without acknowledging the law enforcement action , Garantexpublished an announcementon its prescribed Telegram channel say it has “ develop a solution for blocked assets , ” and is invite customers with a positivist account balance “ to a personal meeting in our Moscow part , ” harmonise to a machine translation .
Garatexsaidit will start “ face - to - face meetings ” in its office as of Monday , and is asking customer to get “ with the phone to which the account is associate and with access to your email , ” because the caller “ may need to send you confirmation code , ” its annunciation read .
The company ’s request is unusual , in a world that extremely values namelessness like the man of crypto . Showing up at the offices of a troupe that ’s been sanctioned by boththe U.S. governmentandthe European Unionposes unmanageable - to - predict risks to customers , notwithstanding the risk from the Russian government itself , and there ’s no guarantee at this point that Garantex will be capable to repay customers .
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It ’s unclear exactly how many customer Garantex has , but the exchange has processed more than $ 96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since 2019 , concord to the DOJ . Garantex in all likelihood has a large number of customers , many of which do n’t live anywhere near Moscow .
Garantex did not respond to a request for comment .
