Garantex's Big Mess

Garantex, a Russian crypto exchange, has had a rough week. On Thursday, Tether locked away about $28 million of Garantex's funds. At the same time, an international law enforcement operation, led by the U. S. Secret Service, took down Garantex's websites. Garantex didn't mention this operation to its customers. Instead, they said they were "suspending all services, including cryptocurrency withdrawals. " The next day, Friday, the U. S. Justice Department made serious accusations. They charged two of Garantex's administrators, Aleksej Besciokov and Aleksandr Mira Serda, with helping cybercriminals and terrorists launder money. The prosecutors also mentioned they had frozen over $26 million in Tether and Bitcoin. This explained what happened to the Tether wallets. On Saturday, Garantex tried to offer a solution to its customers. They invited customers with a positive account balance to a personal meeting in their Moscow office. This is unusual for a crypto company. Crypto is all about anonymity. But Garantex asked customers to bring their phones and email access. They said they might need to send confirmation codes. Garantex did not say anything about the law enforcement actions. They just said they had a solution for the blocked assets. Customers might face risks. They could be targeted by the Russian government. There's no guarantee Garantex can refund customers. Garantex has processed over $96 billion in cryptocurrency transactions since 2019. This means they have a lot of customers. Many of these customers do not live near Moscow. It will be hard for them to attend the meeting. Garantex did not respond to requests for comment. This leaves many questions unanswered. What will happen to the customers' funds? Will Garantex be able to refund them? Only time will tell.