Cryptex Exchange Defendants Placed Under House Arrest

The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow has imposed pre-trial restrictions on three individuals accused in the case involving the criminal network of the cryptocurrency exchange Cryptex and the anonymous payment system UAPS.

At the request of the investigative authorities, the alleged mastermind of the scheme, Alexander Tereshchenko, along with two accomplices, Ruslan and Roman Orekhovsky, have been placed under house arrest until November 28, 2024.

The defendants are charged with organizing a criminal community, unauthorized access to computer information, illegal circulation of payment means, and unlawful banking activities.

During searches, law enforcement discovered Robinson helicopters, Bentley, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, and Tesla cars, boats, snowmobiles, and seized 1.5 billion rubles in cash in St. Petersburg. The investigation will seek to confiscate these assets.

According to case materials, through the anonymous payment system UAPS, the Cryptex cryptocurrency exchange, and 33 online exchangers, the criminal group has been providing money laundering services for cryptocurrencies obtained illegally since 2013.

They also engaged in the sale of bank cards and access to personal accounts.

In 2023 alone, the volume of operations on illegal services exceeded 112 billion rubles, with the defendants’ criminal income amounting to 3.7 billion rubles.

As part of a large-scale operation, 148 searches were conducted in 14 regions of Russia, and 96 individuals were detained.

In late September, U.S. authorities added the Cryptex exchange, the PM2BTC exchanger, and their alleged administrator, Russian Sergey Ivanov, to the sanctions list.

Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and the Netherlands seized the domains and infrastructure of PM2BTC, UAPS, and Cryptex.