The US Treasury Treasury Office of foreign assets (OFAC) Thursday, sanctioned a network of companies, exchanges and managers linked to the exchange of Russian Crypto Gassi Guarantx and to the Stablecoin A7A5 supported by the ruble, accusing them of having helped Moscow Skirt International Sanctions.
Guarantx, founded in 2019 and once authorized in Estonia, treated more than $ 100 million in transactions linked to ransomware and Darknet activity, the OFAC said. US officials, working with German and Finnish police, seized his web field and frozen $ 26 million in March, quickly prompted the creation of his successor Grinene to continue his operations, officials said.
OFAC said Thursday that Grinex had transferred Guarantex customer funds and used the A7A5 token to restore access after crises. Emitted by Kyrgyzstan Old Vector, A7A5, was created for Russian users of A7 LLC, a cross-border regulation platform, the agency said.
He is supported by Public Russia Promsvyazbank (PSB)Who has been punished to finance the defense industry, and Moldovan politician Ilan Shor, who was sentenced in a billion dollars banking case, reported the information resilience center.
OFAC sanctioned Old Vector, A7 LLC and its A71 and A7 agent subsidiaries, blocking them from the financial system based on the US dollar and prohibiting American people from interacting with one of these entities or more than a dozen cryptographic addresses that are linked to them.
The main managers of Garantors, Sergey Mendeleev, Aleksandr Mira Serda and Pavel Karavatsky, were also sanctioned, as well as the companies of Mendeleev, Indi Bank and expired, accused of having allowed Russian companies sanctioned to negotiate themselves via cryptographic rails.
Treasury officials said the action, coordinated with American secret services and the FBI, aimed to cut the digital asset channels used for ransomware and sanctions.
“Expolor cryptocurrency exchanges to whiten money and facilitate ransomware attacks threatens not only our national security, but also tarnishes the reputation of legitimate virtual asset service providers,” said John K. Hurley, under-secretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, in a press release.
Crypto rails to escape sanctions
A7A5 increased quickly this year, dealing approximately 1 billion dollars a day by July, according to the report of the Elliptic blockchain analysis company. The firm said that the token under cuts a “program to escape sanctions” allowing Russian companies to settle cross-border payments outside the traditional banking system.
Chainalysis estimated that the volume of token cumulative transactions exceeded $ 51 billion until July, warning that it offers “a new crypto-native avenue to bypass the still softened sanctions against Russia”.
“The emergence of the A7A5 network sanctioned today also illustrates how Russia is operational by alternative payment rails,” said the firm.
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