{"id":18814,"date":"2025-03-24T15:46:52","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:46:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=18814"},"modified":"2025-03-24T15:46:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T15:46:52","slug":"shuttered-russian-crypto-exchange-garantex-rebrands-as-grinex-global-ledger-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=18814","title":{"rendered":"Shuttered Russian Crypto Exchange Garantex Rebrands as Grinex, Global Ledger Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Less than two weeks after it was taken down by international law enforcement authorities, Garantex \u2014\u00a0a Russian crypto exchange popular with ransomware gangs and sanctions-evading oligarchs \u2014\u00a0has allegedly already risen from the ashes, rebranding itself as Grinex.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

According to a new report from Swiss blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger, a slew of on and off-chain data indicates that Grinex is a direct successor to Garantex. Some liquidity from Garantex, including all of Garantex\u2019s holdings of a ruble-backed stablecoin called A7A5, has already been moved to Grinex-controlled wallets.<\/p>\n

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Global Ledger CEO Lex Fisun told CoinDesk that, in addition to on-chain data connecting Garantex to Grinex, there have been numerous off-chain indications that the two exchanges are intimately connected. Fisun pointed to the rapid growth of Grinex, which he said had surpassed $40 million in volume in just two weeks, as well as a host of social media ties between the two exchanges.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Though other major blockchain analytics companies, including TRM Labs and Chainalysis, have yet to confirm Global Ledger\u2019s findings, Chainalysis\u2019 Head of National Security Intelligence Andrew Fierman told CoinDesk that he had seen several indicators that Grinex was likely to be the rebrand of Garantex.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Fierman pointed to a recent Telegram comment from Sergey Mendeleev, one of the original founders of Garantex, announcing the creation of Grinex and claiming any similarities between the two exchanges were random \u2014\u00a0followed by two crying laughing emojis. Both Fierman and Fisun told CoinDesk that there were numerous reports of Garantex users going to Garantex\u2019s in-person offices in Europe and the Middle East and transferring their crypto from Garantex to Grinex. Both also pointed out the similarities in the two platforms\u2019 user interfaces.<\/p>\n

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Though the evidence is certainly compelling, Fierman said that until Chainalysis completes its review of Grinex\u2019s infrastructure, it cannot definitively validate the accuracy of Global Ledger\u2019s report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

But, if Grinex is, in fact, a rebrand of Garantex, it wouldn\u2019t be the first time that a sanctioned exchange remade itself after a shutdown. In 2017, Russian crypto exchange BTC-E was taken down by American law enforcement, and subsequently rebranded as WEX. WEX didn\u2019t last long though \u2014\u00a0it shuttered a year later due to internal conflict and in-fighting among its remaining leadership. Similarly, sanctioned Russian exchange Suex rebranded as Chatex, and was subsequently sanctioned again.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The trouble with sanctions<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The fast revival of Garantex demonstrates the challenge of sanctions, especially against criminal operations like non-compliant exchanges, darknet marketplaces and ransomware gangs that can simply morph to avoid detection.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cSanctions evasion is going to happen,\u201d Fierson said. \u201cBecause if you’re sanctioned, you aren’t just going to accept that you can no longer conduct any financial transactions. You are going to look to avoid detection, however that may be, whether it be through creating shell companies, creating new crypto wallets \u2014\u00a0and the larger the operation, and the more prominent, the more technically advanced you’d have to be to actually make it work.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Feirson said this problem isn\u2019t unique to crypto, but crypto-related sanctions offer law enforcement a unique opportunity to follow the money after sanctions are put in place.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unique aspect to the blockchain is that it’s transparent and immutable, and so what happens when a company gets shut down is a lot more examined,\u201d Fierson said. \u201cThere’s a lot more to examine on-chain. Garantex gets shut down, their Tether holdings get seized, but that doesn’t stop them from moving other assets. There’s opportunity to monitor what happens to those funds post-official shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A hydra-like network of potential successors<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Whether Grinex is Garantex 2.0 or not, there are a number of other non-compliant Russian crypto exchanges eager and willing to take its place.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ari Redbord, global head of policy and government affairs at TRM Labs, told CoinDesk that it was simply \u201ctoo early\u201d to definitively assess the relationship between Grinex and Garantex. \u201cThat said, it is clear that other high-risk non-compliant exchanges will try to fill the illicit finance void left by Garantex,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

A recent client report from TRM Labs named several possible successors, including high-risk Russian exchanges ABCEX and Keine-Exchange.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Garantex take down<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Garantex was dismantled by international law enforcement from the U.S., Germany and Finland in a joint operation earlier this month, which seized its domain and servers.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The U.S. Treasury\u2019s Department of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) first sanctioned the exchange in 2022, accusing it of knowingly facilitating money laundering for ransomware gangs like Black Basta and Conti, as well as darknet markets like Hydra.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

According to court documents, Garantex\u2019s clientele also included North Korea\u2019s state-sanctioned hacking squad The Lazarus Group, which was behind the recent $1.4 billion Bybit hack, as well as Russian oligarchs who used the service to evade sanctions after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Two of Garantex\u2019s operators, Lithuanian national and Russian resident Aleksej Besciokov and Russian citizen and United Arab Emirates resident Aleksandr Mira Serda have been charged with money laundering conspiracy in connection with their work with Garantex. Besciokov was arrested<\/a> while vacationing with his family in India earlier this month, and is expected to be extradited to the U.S. to face charges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Less than two weeks after it was taken down by international law enforcement authorities, Garantex \u2014\u00a0a Russian crypto exchange popular with ransomware gangs and sanctions-evading oligarchs \u2014\u00a0has allegedly already risen from the ashes, rebranding itself as Grinex. According to a new report from Swiss blockchain analytics firm Global Ledger, a slew of on and off-chain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-18814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}