Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia charged two males Wednesday with operating a global bitcoin and crypto cash laundering operation that processed almost $400 million in illicit funds over 5 years, a part of a sweeping multinational legislation enforcement takedown that dismantled the group’s prison infrastructure throughout a number of continents.
Ruslan Igorevich Tkachuk, 37, a Ukrainian nationwide, and Alexander Vladimirovich Ledenev, 25, a Russian nationwide, had been arrested in Batumi, Republic of Georgia, the place each males reside, in response to U.S. Legal professional David Metcalf of the Japanese District of Pennsylvania.
Every faces one rely of conspiracy to launder financial devices and one rely of sting cash laundering — fees that carry a most sentence of 20 years in jail.
Prosecutors allege the 2 males had been senior members of a company that known as itself “AudiA6,” which operated a cryptocurrency mixing service and managed a cybercrime discussion board often called Dark2Web, the place customers may negotiate the fee of cybercrimes for pay. Since launching in 2021,
$389 million in bitcoin
AudiA6 accepted roughly 10,333 Bitcoin — valued at roughly $389.7 million on the time of the transactions — into its wallets, incomes at the least $10 million in fee charges by charging shoppers as much as 5% per transaction.
Of these funds, roughly 393 Bitcoin, valued at round $19.2 million, had been traced on to identified darknet markets, ransomware teams, and different illicit sources, with extra funds flowing in not directly from prison actors.
Regardless of AudiA6’s guarantees to shoppers that the combined funds can be untraceable, investigators stated blockchain evaluation revealed the transactions may very well be adopted instantly via trade data.
The case, constructed partly on six undercover operations carried out between December 2022 and Could 2026, featured FBI and Secret Service brokers posing as criminals searching for to launder proceeds from scams and narcotics gross sales.
In a single trade, an AudiA6 operator responded to an agent asking whether or not stolen Bitcoin was acceptable by saying merely, “don’t care.” In one other, when requested whether or not drug sale proceeds posed too nice a danger, the operator replied, “Every thing like that should undergo a mixer.”
The arrests had been a part of a coordinated worldwide takedown involving the U.S. Secret Service, IRS Felony Investigation, Europol, Eurojust, and legislation enforcement companions from Australia, Canada, France, Georgia, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Poland, Switzerland, and the UK. Authorities searched three properties, seized digital gadgets, froze cryptocurrency belongings, blocked related Telegram accounts, and changed the AudiA6 and Dark2Web web sites with legislation enforcement seizure banners.
The U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace stated it’s going to search extradition of Tkachuk and Ledenev to the Japanese District of Pennsylvania. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Benjamin D. Traster and Sima Kazmir.