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Agartala, Tripura
The Central Bureau of Investigation and the Kerala Police have arrested a Lithuanian individual whom the United States wanted for setting up cryptocurrency exchange Garantex, allegedly to launder the proceeds of criminal activities from a homestay located in the southern town of Varkala.
The arrested person was identified as 46-year-old Aleksej Besciokov.
He was planning to escape from India.
“In a coordinated action with the aid of International Police Cooperation Unit of CBI, Kerala Police have arrested a wanted criminal Aleksej Besciokov of USA from Thiruvananthapuram, who was planning to flee from the country," the CBI said in a statement.
"On a request submitted by USA, Ministry of External Affairs acting under the Extradition Act, 1962 got issued a Provisional arrest warrant on 10.03.2025 against the subject from ACJM Patiala House Court in Delhi," the central probe agency said.
He will be produced before the Patiala House Court by the Kerala Police.
As per US Secret Service website, between 2019 and 2025, Russian national Aleksandr Mira Serda and Lithuanian national Aleksej Besciokov controlled and operated Garantex, a cryptocurrency exchange that allegedly facilitated money laundering by transnational criminal organizations (including terrorist organizations) and sanctions violations.
Since April 2019, Garantex has processed at least $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions.
Mira Serda was Garantex’s co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer. Besciokov was Garantex’s primary technical administrator and was responsible for obtaining and maintaining critical Garantex infrastructure, as well as reviewing and approving transactions.
Garantex received hundreds of millions in criminal proceeds and was used to facilitate various crimes, including hacking, ransomware, terrorism, and drug trafficking, often with substantial impact to U.S. victims.
According to the indictment, Mira Serda and Besciokov knew that criminal proceeds were being laundered through Garantex and took steps to conceal the facilitation of illegal activities on its platform.
"For example, when Russian law enforcement sought records relating to an account registered to Mira Serda, Garantex provided incomplete information in response and falsely claimed the account was not verified when, in fact, Garantex had associated the account with Mira Serda’s personal identifying documents, even while disclosing identifying information related to other accounts requested by Russian law enforcement," read the US Secret Service statement.
On March 6, 2025, the U.S. Secret Service executed a seizure order authorized by a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia against three website domain names used to support Garantex’s operations. The seizure of these domains will prevent these sites from being used for money laundering and additional crimes.
As part of coordinated actions, German and Finnish law enforcement seized servers hosting Garantex’s operations. U.S. authorities separately obtained earlier copies of Garantex’s servers, including customer and accounting databases.
In addition, U.S. law enforcement also froze over $26 million in funds used to facilitate Garantex’s money laundering activities.
Mira Serda and Besciokov are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Besciokov is also charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the International Economic Emergency Powers Act—which also carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in person—and with conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
