Our crypto stories of the week focus on enforcement and arrests on one hand, and on the other hand, a disregard for the rules.
First, we head to India, where authorities have arrested the alleged co-founder of the US-sanctioned crypto exchange, Garantex, Aleksej Besciokov, while holidaying with his family.
Next stop is the UK, where authorities cracked down on illegal crypto ATM operators with a first of its kind custodial sentence imposed on an unregistered operator.
Finally, we visit Central America, where El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, has defied IMF loan conditions by increasing the country’s Bitcoin reserve.
Indian police arrest alleged Garantex co-founder, sanctioned and indicted for money laundering by US
Police in the coastal, southwestern Indian town of Varkala, Kerala have arrested Aleksej Besciokov, a Lithuanian citizen who is the alleged co-founder of the US-sanctioned crypto exchange, Garantex. He was captured while on holiday with his family and is set to appear in court on March 14.
US and European authorities allege that the Russia-based crypto exchange processed $96 billion in funds linked to criminal activities. The company started trading in 2019, and in April 2022 was sanctioned by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which alleged that it processed funds that enabled cyberhacks and ransomware operations, financed terrorism and laundered the proceeds of drug trafficking.
In February 2025, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) followed that sanction up by indicting Besciokov and his fellow alleged co-founder, the UAE-based Russian national, Aleksandr Mira Serda. The indictment reads that they “operated Garantex to launder the proceeds of criminal activity, including ransomware, computer hacking, narcotics transactions, and sanctions violations, and profited from the laundering.”
Besciokov was also placed on the US Secret Service ‘most wanted’ list, and on March 6, the agency seized three of Garantex’s website domains. In conjunction, German and Finnish police seized Garantex-linked servers.
The main charges against Besciokov, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and violating the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, could land him in jail for up to 20 years.
The coordinated law enforcement operations by US and European authorities on Garantex, and Besciokov’s arrest in India, demonstrate amply that the facilitators of financial crime via crypto can expect to get caught when authorities globally work together.
Learn more about this story at Krebsonsecurity, and watch our expert panel dissect the Garantex takedown webinar here.
UK court jails unregistered crypto ATM operator in FCA’s first case of its kind
In a landmark case for the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Olumide Osunkoya has become the first person convicted and jailed for operating unregistered crypto asset activities. Sentenced to four years in prison on February 28, 2025, at Southwark Crown Court, Osunkoya had previously pleaded guilty to running an illegal crypto ATM network on September 30, 2024. The conviction marks a significant step in the FCA’s crackdown on unlawful cryptocurrency operations in the UK.
From late December 2021 to early March 2022, Osunkoya ran 28 different crypto ATMs through his company, GidiPlus, illegally, since the FCA had refused to register him to do so. He subsequently, and under a false name via another company, personally ran a network of 12 crypto ATMs to avoid FCA scrutiny.
His actions processed over £2.6 million by early September 2023. The charges against him included possessing criminal property, using fake identification documents, and forgery. He further failed to adequately check that transactions were not laundering illicit funds and faces a confiscation order on the proceeds of his crimes.
He was apprehended after an FCA-led, multi-agency crackdown on illegal ATMs throughout the UK in 2023. The operation visited 38 crypto ATM locations and saw in the number of known ATMs in the UK drop from 80 in 2022 to zero in March 2025, according to Coin ATM Radar.
The FCA’s Therese Chambers said of the landmark case that “this is the UK’s first criminal sentencing for unregistered crypto activity and sends a clear message: those who flout our rules, seek to evade detection and engage in criminal activity will face serious consequences.”
Once again, coordinated law enforcement operations resulted in a first-ever custodial sentence for a criminal who flouted the UK’s crypto regulation regime. It is a strong warning to criminals in the crypto industry that their actions can and will land them in jail. Regulators, investigators, and law enforcement officials can take heart from seeing their hard work in real-world legal action.
Learn more about this story at Finextra.com.
El Salvador defies IMF loan conditions to bolster its Bitcoin reserve
El Salvador has continued to grow its government Bitcoin reserve, despite conditions laid out in terms of the country’s $1.4 billion loan agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) made in December, 2024.
The move, led by the pro-crypto President Nayib Bukele, saw El Salvador’s Bitcoin stocks reach 6,111.18 BTC worth $504 million as of March 2025.
The IMF’s Extended Fund Facility (EFF) loan was offered to improve economic sustainability, increase El Salvador’s reserves, and elevate governance. It came with the stipulation that ‘Bitcoin-related risks are [to be] mitigated.
Acceptance of Bitcoin by the private sector will be voluntary and public sector’s participation in Bitcoin-related activities will be confined.’ The Fidebitcoin fund was set to be liquidated by July 2025.
However, Bukele rejected the condition which would ‘confine’ El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption rate, stating that “no, it’s not stopping. If it didn’t stop when the world ostracized us and most ‘Bitcoiners’ abandoned us, it won’t stop now, and it won’t stop in the future.”
El Salvador became the first country in the world to accept cryptocurrency as legal tender in 2021.
Governments and regulators should watch this story closely. It demonstrates the challenges of balancing economic stability and growth with crypto adoption, and how El Salvador and the IMF proceed in their dealings will be interesting for the entire industry.
